


Hello, Stranger

by Safiyabat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU - FBI, Alternate Universe - Human, Destiel if you squint and angle your head in just the right way, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safiyabat/pseuds/Safiyabat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Dean is an FBI agent with the San Diego field office.  A tense situation on a case brings him into contact with the brother his father disowned twelve years ago, now a successful surgeon living under a new name.  Can the brothers manage to patch up a very frayed relationship before the case puts them in real danger?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I'm not usually into AUs, but my charming Spouse prompted me for this one while we were on a long car trip and it kind of stuck with me. It's been a little challenging to write because it's from Dean's POV and I'm pretty much a Sam girl, but I guess I like the challenge too. NB - I own nothing, all inaccuracies are my own fault. Supernatural and the characters from the show are not my property. I make no money from this or any other work of fan fiction.

Dean accepted the cup from Cas. It smelled like hospital coffee, the kind you only got in hospitals and even then only in hospital emergency rooms. It was the same everywhere. It was like there was a proprietary blend of cheap, mostly stale beans and disinfectant that only hospitals bought. Maybe they mixed it up themselves. “Thanks, Cas,” he said, making a face. “What the Hell is this? Artificial sweetener?” 

“Hospital regulations disallow sugar,” his partner informed him.

“Because chemical sweeteners are so much better,” the agent groused. 

“What are we looking at?” 

“I can tell you that six of the migrants were already dead,” he reported. “They were dead before the truck was even opened. Beyond that I couldn’t say. Crime scene techs are still processing the site but we’ve got to interview the actual victims, assuming that they can still, you know, speak.” 

The blond shook his head. “Honestly. I don’t know why we have to invent ghouls and werewolves and crap like that. People are monsters enough.” He looked around. There had been some sixty people crammed into a tractor-trailer that had been abandoned in the desert. Twenty of the patients had been brought here, to Morningstar General Hospital. Others had been scattered to other area hospitals. No one facility in the area had enough beds to accommodate everyone, and the field office was scrambling to keep up. “All right. I guess we wait. Explain to me where the locals are again.”

“I’m afraid we’re a little stretched these days,” a voice from his other side commented. “Gordon Walker, San Diego police department.” A dark hand reached out to shake his. After a moment Dean accepted the offer. “Local aid cuts, you know how it is. Good thing we have the feds to back us up.”

“I guess,” he said. “Agents Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester. Pleased to meet you.”

“It’s a pleasure. Winchester, you said? Any relation to John Winchester?” 

What was up with this guy holding his hand for so long? “Yeah. He was my dad.”

“Great guy. Hell of a cop. I worked with him for a while in San Francisco. I thought I remembered him saying that his boy went fed. He was real proud of you.”

Okay, now the handholding was just really creepy. “Well, thanks man. Any word on security here right now? I’m a little worried about the traffickers being able to get in here and get at these people.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here, right?”

“Right,” Cas said. He glanced around. There were not enough beds in the ER; people were literally on gurneys in the hall. “I’m sure they feel very safe.”

One of the nurses came out of one of the treatment rooms – a blonde, Dean noticed, with short hair. She was pretty but she really kind of frightened him. “Who’s in charge of the investigation here?”

“That would be me, ma’am,” Dean told her, and that’s when the screaming started. “Well that lasted,” Dean muttered, drawing his gun. He knew the difference between grief-screaming and terror-screaming. This was coming from the entrance to the emergency department and this was not a drill. “Is there some way of locking this area down?” he asked the nurse.

She nodded and slammed a big red button on the nurses’ station. “Page Doctor Campbell,” she directed one of her colleagues. Alarms sounded. Gunshots rang out somewhere in the distance.

“You paged a freakin’ doctor?” he questioned.

“As a matter of fact yes,” she replied. Doors swung shut. “Now stay out of the way. “ She and her colleagues began moving gurneys into treatment rooms as someone paged Doctor Campbell to the emergency room “immediately.” Dean knew from hospitals. Weren’t they supposed to say “stat” or something?

The three cops exchanged glances. “I never argue with the ER nurses here, boys,” Walker advised. “No one would ever find the body.”

“If you think that the nurses are engaging in obstruction of justice it would be inappropriate to avoid filing a report,” Cas told the officer, drawing his own weapon and aiming it at the door.

“Open the door!” a voice called from the admitting area. “We’re not asking twice.”

Dean had been an agent for eight years, a cop for a long time before that. Longer than he’d carried a badge, really – it was the family business. He could read a lot about a person in just a few seconds. He didn’t even really need to see them. “Chicago? Seriously?” he asked Cas.

“That was unexpected,” his partner replied. “I thought the men we were tracking were primarily local. The Chicago groups usually work with Russians, or am I mistaken?”

“We can sort it out later. You’re kidding, right?” he called back. “No way we’re letting you in here.”

“This doesn’t concern you, G-man,” a second voice replied. “We just want our property back.”

“People aren’t property jackass,” he retorted. He looked at Walker. “You want to radio this one in or what?” 

“Right, right,” Walker said, picking up his radio. “Uh, this is Sargent Gordon Walker at Morningstar General, we’ve got a situation here…” There was a gunshot, and a screamed obscenity.

“We aren’t playing around here, G-man!” the first man yelled. “We’ve got a hostage. Open up the doors or he’ll bleed out in a matter of minutes.”

“Dude, there’s no way you’re walking out of here with twenty people,” Dean shot back.

“Nineteen,” the blonde nurse supplied helpfully. “One of the women died while you were getting into your little pissing contest.”

“Not helping, lady,” he growled.

“They’re still ours,” the voice replied.

A different set of doors opened up and two people walked through them. Both of them wore scrubs with white jackets and were apparently of Caucasian descent, although that’s where the resemblance ended. One of them was a woman, about five foot four with long wavy black hair and pale skin. Her nametag clearly read “Dr. M. Masters.” She looked pissed. The other stood a good fourteen inches taller than his companion, towering over everyone else in the room. He had a good four inches on Dean and Dean wasn’t exactly short. It wasn’t as though the guy was skinny either - the guy looked muscular, although scrubs weren’t exactly flattering on anyone. His nametag identified him as “Dr. S. Campbell” although his long chestnut hair and slight stubble made the title a little unbelievable. He didn’t look particularly pissed. “Resolute” might be a better term. “What’s the situation here?” Campbell wanted to know. His voice was gravelly, rough.

“A couple of coyotes trying to take back their ‘property,’” Castiel replied, sizing the giant up.

The man nodded. “How many of them are there?”

Blonde Nurse checked a screen. “Two. Five hostages, one bleeding.”

“He shot a hostage? What a dick.” Masters didn’t seem exceptionally worried, or concerned.

“Tell me, exactly what are a couple of extra doctors going to do about a hostage situation?” Dean wanted to know.

“This doctor’s going to work on the trafficking victims here in the ER. You know, the ones who brought the creeps here in the first place,” Masters smirked. “I assume you’d like for them to actually survive? I’d prefer that sweet cheeks here do the same and not risk those perfect hands of his, but we both know that isn’t going to happen. “

Hazel eyes turned to him and looked down. His brother’s eyes had been hazel. He hadn’t thought much about Sammy in… hell, twelve years? Must have been. Why would he spring to mind now? “That guy is bleeding out right now, Dean,” he said in a voice that was half growl. “There isn’t time to wait for a friggin’ SWAT team. Are you coming with me or not?”

“You’re not even wearing a vest!” he objected.

“Nope.”

“You’re a civilian,” Walker frowned. “They’re going to shoot you in your face.”

“Then they do. Is one of you going to come and play backup or not?” He was walking toward the barrier already. Dean had to race to catch up. 

Stupid sasquatches and their stupid long legs. “What the hell, Campbell?” he hissed. 

Gigantor ignored him and banged on the door. “This is Doctor Sam Campbell. I’m a surgeon here at Morningstar General. I’m going to come out to tend to your hostage, okay?”

“You have to let us in, buddy boy,” the criminal on the other side taunted. “We’re not letting you take our hostage.”

“Dude, the hostage is no good to you dead, and then the charges get upgraded to murder, you understand me?” Campbell told him. “I’m just going to come out with one negotiator.” He turned to Dean. “Put your gun away.” He turned back to the door. “Just us, okay? I’ll be your hostage, all right? They’ve already radioed this in, you don’t want to make this worse than it already is.” A very tense moment followed. “Dude, a doctor is a higher-value hostage than some receptionist, right? Just let me come out, okay?” 

After another couple of seconds the second man spoke. “All right, but no funny business. Just you and the negotiator.” 

“You’re a friggin’ idiot,” Dean hissed to the doctor.

Gigantor shrugged and pushed the door open slowly, hands raised. He and Dean walked slowly into the reception area. “It’s just me, see?” he said. “Me and this guy here.” He walked over to the hostage, who was struggling to hold a hand over a spurting wound in his shoulder. “Do you mind if I take a look at your patient?” He kept his eyes locked on those of the guy with the gun.

“Go ahead, pretty boy.” The coyote was about forty, maybe forty-five, and bald with blue eyes. He had plenty of scars and bad teeth. His partner had facial hair, obviously compensating for the hair missing from his head. “Let’s make this fast, though. G-man there can bring him back to your ER and then you and I can settle in and wait.” 

“Sure thing, boss. Just let me take a look and see what the best way is to stabilize the patient.” He crouched down in front of the hostage, who looked like he might have been a janitor or something. “How you doing, Julio?”

“I’ve been better,” Julio gasped.

Campbell slowly reached into his pocket. “I’m just grabbing some gauze to try to stop the bleeding,” he assured the captor. Both of the bad guys drew closer, suspicious. “Relax. No problems from me, man.” He pulled out a huge wad of gauze and pressed it to Julio’s shoulder. “This probably doesn’t feel great, man. Sorry about this.” He helped Julio to his (shaky) feet and carefully passed him to Dean, passing him an access card while he was at it. As he did he met Dean’s eyes. There was something there, something Dean couldn’t help but feel he was missing.

“Okay, pretty boy, let’s take your seat now,” said Thing Number Two, grabbing Campbell by the arm. That was when the doctor moved, and frankly no guy that size should have been able to move so damned fast. Dean dragged Julio out of the line of fire as fast as he could while Campbell grabbed the assailant’s arm, pulled it past and broke the elbow. He grabbed the gun out of the trafficker’s hand, used it to hit the enemy hard on the head and aimed it at the first trafficker.

“Lie down on the ground,” he said in a growl, with your hands over your head. The thug snarled something obscene – and moved to pull the trigger. Campbell was faster. He shot the Chicagoan in the shoulder. The enemy yelled and fell to the ground, spurting blood. The doctor then pocketed his gun and turned to the agent. “Toss me your cuffs, Dean,” he instructed calmly. “And open the door, would you? We’re going to need to get him into surgery. Julio too.”

Dean fumbled for his handcuffs and tossed them to the physician, who was already on his knees to stop the bleeding. “What the hell, dude?” he asked. Nurses and orderlies and Cas and Walker surged in. 

“I’d recommend reading this guy his rights or whatever,” Campbell advised as he helped to get the bleeding coyote onto a gurney. “I’d hate for him to get out on a technicality. Right, Dean?” He started walking back toward the treatment area.

“Hey,” Dean called. “Hey, Campbell!” he called.

Campbell turned.

“How do you know my name?” he asked. They’d never been introduced.

Campbell kept walking.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a few days – three or four – before Dean went back to the hospital. There was paperwork to fill out. That was the problem with his line of work, and of course being a Fed meant tons and tons of paperwork. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have other cases to work on either. He had plenty of work to do. The truck had been found on Friday, and he had to testify in court on Monday, and it wasn’t as though the job went away… It wasn’t as though he wanted to go in unprepared either. Doctor Sam Campbell had known his name. They hadn’t been introduced. The way he’d spoken to him made it sound like he’d known more than just his name, too. And those hazel eyes… The age was right, or right-ish. It was kind of hard to tell with the doctor. The name was wrong. The accent had nothing of Kansas about it either. So he did some research, some digging.

He mentioned the issue to Cas and to his supervisor in the field office, Henricksen. Cas was surprisingly more leery of investigating than Henricksen, but ultimately both were willing to do some poking around. Between the three of them, Dean’s wi-fi connection and some beer over the weekend they managed to get some information. Working backwards from Campbell’s official Morningstar General biography, Dr. Sam F. Campbell was employed by both the diagnostic medicine and trauma departments at Morningstar General. He’d been in San Diego for about two years. Prior to that he’d worked for Medecins Sans Frontiers working in such sunshiny places as Afghanistan and Somalia. Prior to that he’d been in San Francisco, and prior to that he’d completed very prestigious residency programs in Chicago, New Orleans and Boston. He’d attended Stanford University both for undergraduate and for medical school, where he’d graduated early. No trace of Sam Campbell could be found before matriculation at Stanford. “It would be completely illegal,” Castiel said, “to go into Stanford’s records without a warrant and examine the man’s files to see where he went to high school.” He’d known Cas too long.

“Fortunately we’re not at the office,” he pointed out. “We’re at home.”

“Still illegal, Winchester,” his boss said from where he was already hacking into Stanford’s system. “Fortunately we’re not actually trying to make a case against him for any reason, right?”

“What are we trying to do here, Dean?” his partner wanted to know. “Why is this doctor so important to you?”

“I just… well, I mean, don’t you want to know why a friggin’ doctor is Jason goddamn Bourne?” he asked. “Did you see him take down those baddies? I mean, he didn’t even blink an eye.” It would make some sense if Campbell was who Dean thought he was, but that was about it. 

“The nurses in the ER seemed to think he would quickly resolve the situation,” Cas concurred. “But why do you feel the need to pry into his life so closely? Have you developed intimate feelings for him, Dean?”

Dean blinked. That was a thought that had not even remotely occurred to him. “Er, no, Cas. He just reminds me of someone I used to know.”

“He should,” Henricksen told him. “I got bingo right here. On July seventeenth, 2002, Sam Francis Campbell received permission from the university to move in early and was given a job with student housing to allow access to emergency funds.” The date caused a pit to form in the middle of Dean’s stomach. “On the same day the school registered a name change from a student who had already agreed to attend the school – changing the name to Sam Francis Campbell from Samuel Francis Winchester of Lawrence, Kansas. Three days before that Mr. Campbell-ne-Winchester sought and obtained said name change as well as a restraining order against his father, John Winchester.”

Before Dean knew what he was doing he was across the room, staring at his boss’ screen. “You’re kidding,” he said.

“When a kid shows up to Stanford with six broken ribs, a broken wrist and a black eye the authorities are usually more inclined to be sympathetic.” Henricksen shook his head. “Damn, man. I know your old man could be a hard-ass…”

“You should have seen the other guy,” Dean commented. He remembered that fight. “Did you ever meet Dad?” 

“John? Yeah, a couple of times, right before the end. Why?”

“Ever wonder why his nose was so crooked?”

He shook his head. “Well, if what you told me about what went down between him and those two idiots at the hospital is true then I can’t say as I’m surprised.” The older man shrugged. “So what now, Winchester?”

“What do you mean?”

“We just figured out that your younger brother has been in the same state with you for two years,” Castiel said bluntly. “What do you intend to do with this information? We can give you his phone number, we can give you his home address. You can have a reunion.” 

“Uh… I don’t know, Cas.”

“You don’t know.”

“No, I don’t. I haven’t seen or heard from him in twelve years, you know? He… he walked out on us, he walked out on our mission. He didn’t seem all that excited to see me when we were around each other yesterday, you know?” He shook his head and rubbed his face. He had a brother again. Last week – hell, yesterday – he didn’t have a brother and now he did. Even if he never spoke to him again, never saw him, the brother existed and everything changed. “I didn’t even recognize him. He knew me.”

“Were you close?” That was Henricksen.

“Apparently not. I mean, yeah. When we were kids I guess we were pretty close. I pretty much raised the kid. But that didn’t stop him from taking off. I guess he did pretty well for himself, huh?” He should be proud. On some level he supposed he was, but it wasn’t like Sammy’d been at all happy to see him. He’d been all efficiency and growls. No joy. No apprehension, either. No emotion at all. 

“So why did I waste my weekend digging up his back story and drinking your crappy beer instead of watching porn and baseball in the comfort of my own home?” Henricksen wanted to know. “If you aren’t going to at least go talk to the guy –“

“Does he even know that your father died?” Castiel inquired politely. 

“Uh, I don’t know. I never told him.” He shook himself. “You know what? I should go talk to him. You know, about the case. Under less stressful circumstances. You know. Not when there’s a rampaging psycho looking to shoot up his workplace. At least we should talk about the case, right?”

“Right. And if you don’t want to see him after that, well, San Diego County is a big place. There’s no real need for you and him to interact if you don’t choose to,” his boss told him. “Why don’t you two head on over there on Tuesday?” 

Which is how Dean found himself on Tuesday afternoon heading back to Morningstar General Hospital with his partner. Some intern for the bureau had ensured that Dr. Campbell was indeed in the office today. He hadn’t bothered to schedule an appointment; it would probably take forever to get on the guy’s calendar, so he aimed for late in the workday and hoped he wasn’t a golfer. The Sammy he’d known as a kid wouldn’t have gone for golf, but the Sammy he’d known as a kid wouldn’t have let him walk out of the hospital after a twelve year absence without so much as a “so long.”

The Sammy he’d known as a kid wouldn’t have let a twelve-year absence happen.

He and Castiel entered the Diagnostic Medicine reception area. It was nice enough, he guessed. It didn’t look much like they did on House. It looked like any other waiting room, complete with outdated copies of Martha Stewart Living. He paced. He couldn’t sit for long. There were other doors, other doctors. The other doctor from the hostage incident had an office here too. “Dr. Campbell is in a meeting, he should be back in a few minutes,” the receptionist informed him. “Can I get you anything to drink? Some coffee, or some water?”

“No thank you,” Cas said for both of them. “Hospital coffee tastes like disinfectant.” The woman blinked.

“Were you raised on planet Vulcan?” Dean whispered.

“No,” his partner replied, and picked up a magazine.

It took about fifteen minutes of pacing before any of the staff returned to the office. None of them were wearing scrubs. Dr. Masters actually looked pretty hot in her pencil skirt and heels if he had to be honest – and if she didn’t give him the most direct look of contempt that he’d ever received from a woman, even worse than the time he’d been thirteen and caught sneaking into the girls’ locker room at school. “Agents Winchester and Novak,” she greeted. “To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?” Sammy showed little emotion when his colleague’s voice cut through the babble of post-meeting small talk. 

“We were hoping to debrief Dr. Campbell on last week’s incident,” Dean suggested. “I recognize that he’s a busy man, this shouldn’t take long.”

One of the other men present, almost as tall as Sammy but older and less muscular, frowned. “I’m pretty sure that our legal department is going to take some exception to that,” he said in a quiet, cool voice that made Dean’s skin crawl. “There’s no way that Sam’s talking to anyone without our lawyers present, and I’m reasonably certain that they’ve all gone home for the day.”

“We’re not accusing him of anything,” Cas objected, stepping forward. “We just need to take his statement.” 

“Which you won’t be taking without a lawyer,” the doctor insisted. Sam just crossed his arms over his chest and met Dean’s eyes. “It seems rather odd that you would have chosen to attack him without proper procedure – without notifying our legal department, without making an appointment –“

“Jesus Christ, guy, no one is attacking anyone,” Dean exploded. “We just want to talk to the guy.” 

“Casey,” the older man said, “would you be a dear and reach out to the legal department? See if they can send someone up to cover, if they have anyone.”

“I just want to have a goddamn conversation,” Dean complained. “Sammy, you can have a conversation with me.”

The object of his quest huffed. “Right.”

“Sammy, please,” he pleaded, not really caring how it looked. 

The doctors all looked at their colleague, but it wasn’t in confusion. They knew. Finally Sam relented, but it wasn’t comfortably. He never lost that defensive stance. “Fine,” he spat, “but only in front of Meg or Nick. You’re not ganging up on me.”

Ganging up on him? “Fine. Whatever.” Meg – Dr. Masters – smirked and led the way to Sammy’s office. Did Sammy have a thing going with the hot doctor? Dean didn’t think they had that kind of body language, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe they could turn it off in the ER. It wasn’t like that sort of thing was sanitary. 

The office was spectacularly impersonal. There were books, of course – all kinds of books about all kinds of things. Anatomy, disease, disease through history, pathology… Dean’s eyes swam with the effort of looking at them. Some of the books weren’t even in English. There were no photos, no knick-knacks. Everything was meticulously arranged and in place. It smelled like coffee and that was about it. He gestured to two chairs on the “guest” side of the desk. Meg took the chair behind the desk – looking a little ridiculous, since it was set up at a height for a man over a foot taller than she was – while Sammy stood behind her and looked twitchy. “All right. Debrief,” he instructed. 

“Good to see you too, Sammy,” Dean said. 

“Can it, Dean,” he snapped. “You’re not here for small talk.”

“Actually I am,” he said with a sigh. “I wouldn’t have thought that I’d have had to schedule an appointment to see my brother again after twelve years. Or that you’d think you’d need a lawyer or freakin’ witnesses for the reunion. You look good, though. Looks like you’ve been taking great care of yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“So… doctor, huh?” One-sided conversations sucked, but it wasn’t the first one he’d been involved with. “Good on you. Must be doing well for yourself.” 

He shrugged, moving that massive frame around. “I do okay.”

“Sam donates a lot of his salary,” Dr. Masters – Meg – informed. Her tone was somewhere between hostility and pride. “Not that it’s any of your business, but the tax records are all in order. Is that what this is about? Because that’s definitely something that’s going to wait for a lawyer.”

“Christ. No. Can’t we just be brothers?”

“Sorry. The last time he encountered a family member said family member stabbed him in the gut. You’ll have to forgive us if no one around here is exactly enthusiastic about a repeat of the experience.” Meg smirked at him.

“Wait, what?” Dean stood up. “It’s not like – did you see Dad?” 

“How do you think I knew you’d joined the Bureau?” 

“When?”

“Right when Bill Harvelle got killed.” He sighed. “How much do you know about that?”

“It was in San Francisco. They were there looking for the guy who killed Mom and Bill took a bullet,” Dean remembered.

“Yeah. I was the surgeon. I did what I could but he’d lost too much blood, there was too much damage.” He looked away briefly, toward the window and his eyes looked almost blue for a moment. They snapped back to Dean. “I suspected that he’d be there with John but I wasn’t positive, you know? I still went out to talk to the one who brought him in because that’s just kind of what you do and we spoke a bit. He tried to tell me they were just walking but I mean, come on, in that neighborhood at that hour? And I looked at him and he recognized me, and he took this knife out of his pocket and he stabbed me with it.”

“He didn’t stab you, Sammy,” Dean scoffed. “Dad was a lot of things, and not all of them were good, but he wasn’t a killer.”

“I was right there, you buffoon,” Meg said coldly. “And a good thing, too. Kept going on about how Sam had the devil in him or some such crap and how it didn’t matter how far or fast he ran, if he didn’t get him you would hunt him down. So you see why we’re a little reluctant to leave you alone with him.”

“Dad never said anything,” Dean assured him. No wonder he was less than enthusiastic about seeing his brother again. “I swear. I had no idea. How come they didn’t arrest him? I never knew about that.”

“He was a cop who had just lost his longtime partner,” Cas surmised. “They were probably disinclined to make more trouble for him.”

“Well, you’re safe from him now. He died. In San Francisco, actually. DUI.”

“I know. Who do you think pronounced?” For a moment, Sammy looked old, impossibly old. Then he straightened up. “So great. Good talk.”

“Sammy, look. He never even told me he’d seen you. I had no idea. Honestly. As far as I knew, you were dead to us. That’s how he always treated it.” Sam scoffed. “Look. Let’s… let’s try this again. Let’s just go out and grab dinner, or some beers or something. Let’s just try to re-connect, okay? Wife? Kids?”

“No.” 

“What about you, Dean-o? Wife? Kids?” Meg smirked again. Dean was pretty sure that her face had frozen that way, in the way of old wives’ tales.

“Actually yeah, Sammy. You’re an uncle. I’ve got a little boy – well, he’s eight now – back in Virginia. Things didn’t work out with his mom but you know. He even looks a little bit like you.” He went for his wallet and Sam twitched. Not for the first time, Dean cursed his father silently. He passed the photo to Cas, who passed it to Meg, who passed it to Sam. “He’s coming here in August. I’d love for him to meet you when he gets here.”

“He doesn’t even know he has an uncle, does he?” the giant sneered. He glanced at the photo and passed it back. 

“No. But he will, once I talk to him tonight.” He sighed and tried to put his emotions to the side. He was good at this. He was one of the best interrogators the local office had. “Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

Meg snorted. “No.”

“So what is it that you do with your spare time?” he asked. “I’m trying to get to know you again here, Sammy.”

“First of all, it’s Sam. Secondly, you never knew me, Dean.” He shook his head. “Look, it’s nice that you want to connect and whatever but it’s kind of… late for that. You know? If you’ve got some kind of weird disease come find me.” He glanced at the door and Meg stood up. The agents knew they’d been dismissed. It hadn’t been this bad when Sam had left the first time. Then it had been all blood and shouting and breaking glass, not this coldness and calmness. Dean rose to his feet and stumbled to the door, not even with a word to say. It was left to Cas to pass the doctors a card. “If you have any problems related to the incident from last week please don’t hesitate to give a call.” There was a pause, the kind of pause that could only come from writing. “These are our cell phone numbers. Call anytime.” “Thank you, Agent Novak.” That was Meg again.

The older doctor, Nick, came out of his office. The nameplate on the door indicated he was the department chair, Nick Pellegrino. “Done so quickly, agents?” he asked in that soft voice that wasn’t soft at all. 

“What’s your problem buddy?” Dean demanded, getting up in the physician’s face.

“Dr. Campbell is a valued asset here at Morningstar General,” the man purred. “He saves lives every day. He saved a six year old today, Agent, because he was able to focus and concentrate and not be distracted. He’s been through a lot. I think he’s earned some peace, don’t you?” He gave a thin, grim smile. “Now I would strongly advise against showing up unannounced again, Agent. The hospital in San Francisco was not willing to make a scene about inappropriate police behavior. Things are different here.”

Castiel returned from Sam’s office. “I understand completely, Dr. Pellegrino. Come along, Dean.”

Dean felt his arm grabbed and the next thing he knew he was being loaded into an elevator. He felt numb as Cas shoved him into the passenger seat and took the wheel for the ride back to the office. He’d gained and lost a brother in the space of what, forty-eight hours. “Well, that was anticlimactic,” his friend commented when they got to the highway. 

“Not what I expected,” he admitted.

“What did you expect?” he asked, but not in a sarcastic way.

“I’m not really sure. Not the open hostility. I guess it makes sense, if Dad tried to stab him. I mean, Dad couldn’t have really tried to stab him, right? That’s just crazy.” 

“There’s a witness. And it is consistent with the records we saw from his arrival at Stanford. Did your father really think Sam had the devil in him?”

He sighed. Cas knew a lot about his family – he was his best friend, had been his partner since Quantico for crying out loud. “Yeah. He… Sam never knew our Mom so he never had that… drive to find her killer like we did. Sam never wanted to be a cop. He pushed back against Dad at every opportunity, you know? He wasn’t exactly a law-and-order kid. Really rebellious. All the time.”

“How do you get ‘rebellious’ out of ‘straight A student?’”

“Sammy managed. All that hair. The friends he had – man, you should have seen them. Wouldn’t ever do what he was told, not once.” He paused. “Did it seem to you like there might be something going on there? Something more than just not wanting me around?” 

“What do you mean?”

“That Nick guy seemed really defensive of Sam. So did his little chicky.”

“She had a gun under the desk, for the record.”

“Seriously?”

“You were emotionally compromised. You could not have noticed. She was prepared to defend Sam. From you.”

“Christ. I guess he has a family of his own now.” He frowned. “Nick said something to me. He said something about how he’d ‘been through a lot’ and he’d ‘earned some peace.’ It seemed like there was a little more going on than just Dad beating him up when we were kids, you know?” He sighed. “I just can’t believe that Dad stabbed him. Or that Dad saw him and didn’t say anything to me. I mean, twelve years and I don’t even get a card or a phone call or anything!”

“Did you try to reach out?”

“He’s the one who walked out. He’d have made a kick-ass cop. Did you see the way he took down that psycho the other day? Can you see him on a SWAT team somewhere? I mean, look at the size of him! He had a responsibility to our mother, to our father, to our family and to the community. He’s the one who rejected it all, you know?” He tugged at his tie. 

“You don’t think that graduating early from Stanford, becoming a respected doctor and saving lives is worthy of him?”

“No. He should have been out there helping me hunt down the people who killed Mom, not screwing around at Stanford. You know, we didn’t even know which school he went to?”

“No?”

“No. We found acceptance letters to three schools – MIT, U Chicago and I think Berkeley. We went to the bus station but he’d gotten tickets to all three places and of course he didn’t leave the acceptance letter to Stanford where we could find it. Dad never told me about the restraining order. I guess it makes sense, though. He did beat Sammy up pretty badly when Sammy tried to leave.” He laughed. “I guess he filled out well.”

“He is muscular.” Cas paused. The guy wasn’t very good at emotional crap. Dean wasn’t either, to be honest. Being raised by John Winchester didn’t exactly put a guy in touch with his feelings. “I am reluctant to leave you alone tonight, Dean. It seems as though you should perhaps get your mind off things. Perhaps a bar would be a good plan.” 

Perhaps one would.


	3. Chapter 3

The case did not go away, of course, which meant that Dean and Cas did return to Morningstar General. They needed to get statements from staff members, and they needed to get statements from patients. This was another area in which the Morningstar legal department was proving obstructive. They were willing to allow agents and police and forensic specialists and whoever to speak to the actual perpetrators so long as hospital lawyers were present, but they were absolutely unwilling to permit anyone to interview the victims themselves. Dean became very familiar with the head of the legal department, an insufferable Brit by the name of Crowley who never raised his voice and who made it very clear that if he so much as lurked near any of the patients who’d been brought in he would face a mountain of legal problems that would make his divorce from Lisa look like a cake walk. On the one hand Dean could understand that. The hospital was not allowed to get involved with immigration law, or to help law enforcement with regards to illegal immigration. On the other hand, they needed to do something about the people who’d smuggled these people into the country and who were willing to shoot up a hospital to do it. So he did what he could do: kicked it to Cas. Cas was actually a lawyer, or had been before getting a gun and a badge that the guy just could never manage to flash right side up no matter how many years he had with the bureau. At the same time, though, Crowley made it equally clear that if Dean so much as got off the elevator on the same floor as Diagnostic Medicine his life would become a living hell. 

He knew he should respect his brother’s wishes – no contact, no anything – but something really nagged at him. Dr. Pellegrino’s words came to him in the silent moments – between phone calls, in elevators. He’s been through a lot. He’s earned some peace. He made some more calls, did some more research. Dean was able to figure out from Sam’s hospital biography that his brother had been in Somalia about three years ago, during which time a Times article informed the world (or at least the part of the world that read the Times that a team from Medecins Sans Frontiers had been abducted in Somalia. The team included two French nurses, a German doctor and one American doctor. No names were given. MSF was unwilling to give out information without a warrant, especially to a foreign government, but Henricksen was able to pull some strings at the State Department. Apparently Dr. Sam F. Campbell had been the American doctor. He and one of the nurses had been the only ones to survive a four-month imprisonment. Henricksen’s contact was unable to share any information on how their release had been obtained. He’d come to San Diego after recuperating from his injuries.

Dean sighed. He shared everything with Cas, of course. Henricksen knew, he’d gotten the information. The trio sat in his office after hours on Friday, ties off. “I’m not entirely sure what to do here,” he confessed. “I mean, Sammy’s got Crowley the attack lawyer on me. I go near him and the bank will foreclose on my house and the next six on the block besides.”

“He seems to be coping admirably, all things considered,” Cas commented.

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean his life has been fairly violent,” his best friend replied. “It began in violence – his mother was murdered, your home was burned down and you were forced to carry him out. Your father was violent with him and apparently tried to kill him more than once. He was forced to cut himself off from all family contacts and he was then held hostage for four months. He’s still managed to make a very successful life for himself, and attach some equally bright and successful people as well. Perhaps he doesn’t want someone upsetting the balance.”

“Cas, did you see his office? That was not the office of someone who is ‘okay.’” He shook his head. “I bet he doesn’t even eat doughnuts in there.”

“Not everyone keeps an office with its own stratigraphic layers,” Henricksen observed. 

“Hey, I got a system. Listen, I just want to know he’s okay. I want him to know that I want to be here for him. And I’m worried about him with those traffickers, you know? I want to make sure that he’s not being followed, that no one decides to take revenge out on him, you know?” He massaged his face. “I told Ben.”

“Told him what, that he’s got a long-lost uncle?” Henricksen snorted. “How’d he take it?”

“At first he was kind of annoyed. You know, ‘How come you and Grandpa never said anything?’ Then he kind of took it in stride. ‘Can I meet him? Will he take me to the zoo when I come there in August?’” He laughed. “He’s sure got his priorities.” 

“Dr. Masters,” Cas suggested.

“What?”

“She seems very defensive of your brother. She might be sympathetic and willing to share information, or at least provide assurance. We could at least make the attempt and if I or Agent Henricksen call her it might not be as offensive as if you do it,” the former lawyer mused. He grabbed his phone and went through his contacts. 

“She’s already in your contacts?” he asked. “You trying to say something, Cas?”

“She is not unattractive,” he admitted.

“But this course of action seemed –“ He stopped. “Doctor Masters, this is Agent Novak from the San Diego – yes, me.” He paused. “Well, to be honest I’m experiencing some concerns. My supervisor shares those concerns and we would like to discuss them with you. Off the record. No lawyers, no recording devices, no documentation. Just a casual conversation between you and us about our concerns for your colleague’s safety.” Pause. “Because we believe you share those concerns.” Pause. “Because you pulled a gun on two federal agents, Dr. Masters.” Pause, and then the barest hint of a smile. “No, I know he won’t want to meet up. Perhaps a bar would be appropriate. We will be off the clock, after all.” Pause. “Right. Tomorrow afternoon, one o’clock. We’ll be there.” Dean blinked as his friend hung up the phone. “It was that easy?” “As it turns out she has some concerns about her friend’s safety as well. She will meet with us for drinks tomorrow afternoon. She’s uncomfortable sneaking around on him but she says she’s ‘not sure what to do.’” He grinned. “She’s somewhat displeased with you, Dean.” 

Dean went to bed early that night, but he had a hard time sleeping. He was going to go have a meeting with his brother’s self-proclaimed guardian… angel? That really didn’t seem like quite the word. There was nothing particularly angelic about that woman, he’d stake the Impala on that. Protecting Sammy had always been his job. Training him to protect himself had always been his job, but if he’d gotten himself kidnapped and held hostage he obviously hadn’t done his job well enough. What the hell had he been thinking, going off to someplace like Somalia anyway?

He got up early the next day when he realized that sleep was going to be elusive and crappy anyway. Might as well be productive, right? The two traffickers had lawyered up as soon as possible, proving that they’d been down this road before. Their fingerprints had proven him right on that – rap sheets a mile long, although few of the charges directly related to human trafficking. The Bearded Wonder had done ten years for armed robbery, which was probably where he had met Thing Number One. He’d been in Joliet for attempted murder. They’d both been in and out of the joint on a variety of charges, although they’d avoided conviction on anything serious like murder. They’d avoided conviction, not being charged. Most of those charges had been connected to an Albanian organization whose name Dean couldn’t even try to pronounce. “Now we’re cooking with gas,” he said out loud. When last seen the Wonder Twins had been in Chicago breaking kneecaps. Just before they could be arrested on RICO charges they’d skipped town and here they were… 

Before he knew it the time had come to shower and dress and pick up his buddies. The Impala could more than hold them. Civilian attire always looked weird on them. It felt weird on him when he was around Henricksen. Did he feel weird without a tie around them? Naked? “Think she’ll pull a gun on us again?” he asked Cas.

“That depends on us I suppose. If we don’t threaten her I suspect we’ll be fine,” he replied honestly. Dean had been joking. “Sam will not be there, so she’ll have less to defend.”

Henricksen shook his head. “You should have arrested her.”

“I don’t think that would have de-escalated the situation, sir.” They pulled into a parking space right in front of the bar. “She would not have used it unless we actually attacked Sam Campbell.”

“Winchester,” Dean corrected.

“Uh, no,” their boss reminded him. “Not in a long time, man. We have to respect that. If you go in there trying to be all big-brother with this woman – who has obviously decided that she is the big brother now, for whatever reason – you’re going to lose her and Sam.”

He nodded. “You’re right, I know you’re right.” He got out of the car. “It’s just… hard.” 

“Of course it is. He’s your little brother.” 

The trio walked in and got a table near the back. At precisely one o’clock Meg Masters walked in. She found them quickly and took the available seat, shaking hands upon being introduced to Henricksen. “Bringing in the big guns, huh, Dean-o?” she smirked. 

“Can’t be too careful with you, Meg,” he replied. “Never know when you might decide to waste me on general principles. 

Funny – you didn’t strike me as the jealous type.” The waitress came over and took their orders. Dean wanted a whiskey. There was something about this woman that just set his teeth right on edge. He stuck with beer, as did all of his companions. Of course, Meg would have to order one of those upscale, sissy beers.

“So,” Cas began once the waiter left. “You said you were concerned about Dr. Campbell’s safety.”

“He’s being followed,” she explained.

“Are you sure?” Henricksen leaned forward. “Has he mentioned anything to hospital security?”

“I’m sure,” she replied. “I’ve seen them myself. They followed him to my place yesterday. I insisted that he stay there when he told me about them. I tried to tell him to go to the police but he’s never been a fan of the five-oh.”

“He knows better than that,” Dean scoffed. “Who’s following him? Do you know?”

“He says it’s been different guys every time, mostly driving beat up old vans and such. Blond guys, light eyes for the most part. Tattoos.” She shrugged. “They didn’t exactly offer their IDs. He and Nick went over to his place today to get his –” She stopped herself. “A few supplies.” 

“Firearms?” Henricksen guessed. 

“A few,” she replied. “He has licenses.”

“I know, I looked them up.” He shifted. “Doesn’t mean it’s a great idea for you to have them in your house, though.” 

“Look, it’s a compromise, okay? I wanted him to go to you or to the police, but he was pretty adamant.”

“So you came to us instead,” Dean interrupted. “I assume he doesn’t know you’re here.” He snickered. “I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.” 

“Well, Agent Novak calling solved a few problems. Between that and… well…” She bit her lip. “He’s not doing all that well. I’m on the verge of asking Nick to ask him to take some time off. Personal days, sick days, whatever. That’s on you, Winchester. He’d have been fine if you hadn’t decided to get up in his face.” She took a drink from her beer. 

“You think having me in his life is making him sick,” he repeated, not sure he’d heard her right.

“I can’t find any evidence that he’s eaten anything, as near as I can tell he’s not sleeping. I think he got an hour or so but he woke up with nightmares last night.” 

“Are you sleeping with him?” Cas wanted to know.

“He sleeps in the guest room, asshole. It’s his for the asking, has been since he got back from Somalia. It’s not like he had anyplace else to go.” She glared at Dean again.

“You’re close,” he observed. “Yeah.”

“How long have you known him?”

She sighed. “We were residents together in Boston. He was a funny one, you know? He was good with people, he could always get them to talk and tell them what we needed to know. Everyone was willing to work with him, everyone was willing to follow him, but he was never close with anyone, you know? But he and I hit it off. Friendly –like, Big Brother. I never sank my wicked evil claws into his sweet little skin.” She smirked at him. “Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to but the poor guy seemed to be cursed. I know his girlfriend from undergrad died – Jess. Murdered. He dated a girl while we were in Boston, too, but she died too. Uh, killed in a wreck in another city or something, I can’t remember where we were. Nice girl. Feisty. I liked her.” She smiled then, a little dreamily.

“Has he been dating anyone since he came to San Diego?” Henricksen wanted to know. “We just want to know if they could be tracking him that way, or if she could be in any danger.”

She gave a short laugh. “No. He hasn’t even thought about anyone since Somalia, trust me on that.”

“What happened there, Meg?” Dean asked.

“You don’t know?” 

“Obviously.”

“I wonder why that is. Oh right – his family has been trying to kill him for twelve years.” She glared.

“That was Dad. Maybe. I just want to help him, take care of him. Keep him safe. Come on.” “Your ability to keep him safe has nothing to do with what happened over there. I will tell you this, though, because even though he took down your baddies without your intervention you still think he needs you to save him. He was stuck over there for four months and he waited like you’re supposed to for someone else to save him. And then he saved himself. He saw an opportunity and he took it, fought his way out and saved the last hostage left too. Drove them both into Kenya. So don’t go thinking he’s some delicate flower, okay? And yeah – that badass who went from unarmed hostage to action hero in three point five seconds got sent into flashbacks by seeing you again.” She smiled again, ice and steel. “He had no one when he got out, no one but me. He’ll always have me.”

He sighed. “I would have answered if he’d called.” “Dumbass. The only reason he thought it was a good idea to go to frickin’ war zones in the first place was because your father stabbed him in the gut when he did find him. He called MSF as soon as the hospital told him they weren’t going to back him if he pressed charges.” She shook her head.

“Have the people following him said anything to him or made contact in any other way?” Henricksen wanted to know, bringing the conversation back to the subject at hand. Dean wasn’t sure if it was good to have his boss here or not. On the one hand, Meg made his blood boil so it was good to have him around to calm him down. On the other hand, Meg made his blood boil, so he felt like he was making rookie mistakes.

“Um, yeah. Well, sort of. There have been people trying to make appointments with Dr. Campbell for consultations, Russian people, and of course we don’t really work that way.” She looked at the senior agent. “In Diagnostic we get the weird cases, the ones where the regular doctors can’t figure out what’s going on. The rest of the time Sam’s a trauma surgeon. You don’t schedule a rebar through the skull, you know? So the receptionist just tells them to go through regular channels, “ She bit her lip. “He does usually work a clinic up in Fallbrook for migrant workers on Saturday but I covered for him today. There were three guys who came in who looked healthy, didn’t look Latin or at all migrant-worker-y, and who left when they saw me instead of him.”

The men exchanged glances. “So you say you’re close, right?” Cas repeated.

“I’m his best friend, why?”

“You’ve maybe been seen in public at other times?” 

“We spend a lot of time together, yes.”

“Then we need to move Sam and we might want to get you to a safer location as well,” Dean said. “Call him. Now.” He signaled to the waiter and got the check.

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” she asked, although she did take her phone out. 

“No, I don’t. Most of the groups we’re dealing with are not playing around, Meg, and if they feel that Sam did something against them they will not stop coming until he is dead. And if you’re in their way you’re collateral damage.” He felt a little mollified by the way her pupils constricted. “We’ll drive you to your place.” Henricksen was already on the phone with the sketch artist. “You’re going to give us a description of the men you saw.”

“That’s the last time I take on one of his shifts at the clinic,” she grumbled. “Okay. Fine. Let’s go.” They paid their bill and left. Meg didn’t live far away – she’d actually walked, which made the whole logistics thing easier. Henricksen stayed outside to direct the response as it came in and Dean and Cas followed the doctor into her apartment.

The place was about what Dean expected from Meg – all shiny angles and trendy lighting. The only thing out of place was Sam. He’d been sitting on a couch in jeans and a plain tee shirt. Dean blinked. The scrubs and the dress clothes had really minimized his brother’s bulk, but dressed like this he could really see that the stealth Winchester was pretty much all muscle. No wonder the bearded thug had gone down without much of a fight. “Meg, what the fuck?” He’d been reading before apparently springing to his feet, evidently expecting an attack. The book was in a language Dean couldn’t identify. 

“The guys who have been following you came into the clinic today,” she explained. “They saw me.” 

“It’s just a matter of time before they figure it out and come after her. She’s in danger too,” Cas injected. “You both need to come someplace safer until we get this situation squared away.”

Sam’s eyes were ringed with black and his tanned skin looked a little sallow. “You’re kidding me,” he said. 

“No. We’ve been working this human trafficking thing for a while. We know what they’re capable of. If I’m right this outfit’s US base is in Chicago, I’m pretty sure they’re Russian.” Sam rolled his eyes at Dean’s words. “You got a problem, Sam?”

“How long is this going to last?” he asked. “And do you think you can actually keep Meg safe?”

“We can keep both of you safe if you cooperate,” Cas told him. “The question is where can we bring them?” 

“You’re not bringing him anyplace without me,” Meg declared firmly. 

“Meg, you don’t need to get involved with my messes,” he told her gently, and it was the only tenderness Dean had heard from his brother since they’d reconnected. Meg insisted they weren’t sleeping together. Maybe not, but there was something there. He’d stake his badge on it.

“This isn’t your fault.” “I’m already involved, sweetcheeks,” she pointed out. “They’ve got my scent. Besides, look at yourself. You haven’t slept in days and you’re not eating. If you think I’m letting you out of my sight until you’re back to normal –well, you-normal – I’m going to think you cheated your way through med school.” 

“You can stay with me,” Dean heard himself offer. “I’ve got a guest room, and there’s no reason they’d be able to figure out we’re brothers. It’s a bit cluttered, I wasn’t expecting houseguests, but it’s safe and defensible.”

“Or we could stay in a hotel,” Sam challenged. Well, the tenderness was gone now.

“Not defensible,” Cas objected. “Too many opportunities. I think Dean’s house may be the best we have to offer. Someone will stay with you at all times until you are safe.”

“Isn’t the FBI supposed to have safe houses or something like that?” his sibling persisted, and really, what was up with this guy that he couldn’t crash with his brother for a few days? Oh, right. PTSD. He had to keep reminding himself. “That has to be a better plan.”

“We do,” Dean admitted. “They wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable. To the best of my knowledge they’re also occupied at the moment. We can look into them if you’d prefer, but for the moment I think it’s best to get you someplace safe until the situation gets sorted out, okay? I’m speaking as a professional now, not as a long-lost brother.” He couldn’t miss the eye roll and pressed his lips together. He couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“What’s so funny?” his brother wanted to know. 

“It’s been a good twelve and a half years since I’ve seen Bitch-Face Thirty-Seven,” he remarked. 

“This isn’t going to turn into a witness protection thing is it?” Meg wanted to know.

“I hope not.”

“Wait – are we allowed to go to work?” Some things never changed, and the way Sam’s jaw set was one of them.

“We can talk about arrangements once we get to my place. For now, get your things. All of your things,” he counseled. “That means the arsenal you and Dr. Nick apparently brought over. It’s fine, I don’t mind. I’ll give you the combo for the safe.” Sam had little to collect. Meg, on the other hand, had quite a few things to pack. Dean suspected she was packing extra stuff just for the sake of pissing him off. Eventually, though, she was ready and (with everyone carrying at least two bags) they were ready to go. Well, Dean had wanted to get closer to his brother. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind, but hey. He’d take it.


	4. Chapter 4

Of course they couldn’t just take their own cars over to Dean’s, largely because his super-genius little brother had brilliantly decided that the best and safest way to go stay in a safer location when being followed by a gang of crazed Russian or maybe Albanian human traffickers was to take a freaking motorcycle. There was no freaking way that any of the Feds involved were going to let someone being targeted by organized crime expose himself that way, so they had to split up. Cas drove Sam’s bike. Dean hadn’t known Cas could ride but apparently he could. Henricksen rode with Meg and Dean got to ride with Sam. And even though his little brother seemed to be as ready to spit on him as to look at him he walked right over to the passenger side of that car and folded himself right into his customary seat like it was yesterday. “Just like old times, huh Sammy?” Dean asked, unable to keep a smile from his face.

“I can’t believe this thing is still on the road,” the surgeon said, shaking his head. “And it’s Sam.” He looked out the window and fidgeted. “Dude, cassette tapes?”

“Hey, those are classics!”

“They’re in the same spot in the footwell they were when I left.” He tried to stretch out his legs and failed. There was only so much room, after all.

“Why mess with a good thing, Sammy?” He grinned. “So I’ve got to warn you, I wasn’t exactly expecting visitors. There might be a bit of clutter and stuff.”

“Not a big deal.”

“You and the hot doctor can have the guest room, though. It’s relatively clean.”

“I’ll take the couch.”

“Seriously?” Sam shot him Bitchface Twelve. Once upon a time Dean thought he’d have been happy to never see a bitchface again. Now he couldn’t keep the silly grin from his face. “Okay, man. Geez.” He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “I think she might be up for it.”

“No.”

“She totally digs you, man.”

“You never change, do you?” He shook his shaggy head, and even though he gave a little laugh there wasn’t much humor in it. It gave Dean a pang, because his Sammy had always seen the humor in everything but Dad. “No.”

“Aw, c’mon, Sammy. You’re obviously close, she’s gorgeous, and if she’ll pull a gun on two federal agents –“

“Dean, just shut up, okay? She’s not interested. Not like that. Maybe it might have worked years ago, but not now, and not with me, and it’s none of your god damn business anyway so just shut up. Can we please just focus on these jackasses that are apparently trying to kill me and now poor Meg so we can get back to living our lives?” Dean could feel his brother’s muscles vibrating from across the car.

“You have to switch to decaf, man. It’s time.”

“Time to fucking move,” the younger man muttered, looking back out the window. “Where do you live, anyway?”

“I’m just up in Mira Mesa,” he said. “It’s a nice enough place, you know. Not fancy or anything but I like it. So tell me, have Russians been a problem for you before? Or, you know, Albanians?”

“Yeah.”

He waited for a moment. “Okay, care to elaborate?”

“Not while you’re driving.”

Dean pulled onto the interstate. “Why?”

“Because you’re going to flip your lid and I’d rather you didn’t do that at eighty miles an hour.” He paused. “So. A kid, huh?”

“Yeah. A boy. I told him about you. He wants you to take him to the zoo when he comes to visit in August.”

Sam scoffed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What, you don’t want to take your nephew to the zoo?”

“You don’t know me, Dean. We haven’t spoken in over a decade and you haven’t approved of a goddamn thing I’ve done in a lot longer than that. I’m a witness to you at best. You’re not seriously going to let me just wander off to the zoo with your only child.”

The Fed sighed. “Sam, you’re more than just a witness to me. I’m actually glad that we have a chance to reconnect. Really. I loved you. I raised you, for crying out loud. I never wanted you to leave and it broke my heart when you walked out that door.”

“You were pretty eager to take John’s side,” his brother told him darkly.

“You were walking out. You were disobeying orders. You were turning your back on us, on me!”

Sam sighed. “You know, normal families see a full ride scholarship to Stanford as a cause for celebration.”

“You didn’t even tell us it was Stanford, Sam.”

“It didn’t matter where I went, Dean! Dad would have killed me before letting me leave the state!” He sighed. “It doesn’t matter anymore. What’s done is done. Like you said, you saw it – you see it – as me turning my back on Dad’s mission.”

“Our mission, Sam. Our mission. We put killers behind bars. It’s what we do. It’s how we honor Mom’s memory.” Sam gave a little laugh again. “That’s funny to you?” It wasn’t nice of him, but the subject matter wasn’t exactly filling Dean with the urge to pull punches.

“’Mom’s memory.’ Dude, I was six months old when she died. She was Dad’s wife, and he loved her. Or he thought he did, I don’t know. I can see getting a little unhinged and obsessed, sure. He didn’t have the right to poison your mind and turn you into a good little soldier, but at least you knew her. You remembered her. You at least thought you were fighting for something. I didn’t even have that. And it’s not even like Dad would even talk about her. Or you. I wasn’t fighting for anything. I wasn’t trying to avenge anything, anyone.” He shook his head again and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Fuck it. This is just ridiculous.”

Dean was quiet for a moment. He was angry. Of course he was angry. He wanted to throw a punch at his brother. How dared he crap all over their mother’s grave this way, their father’s? At the same time, he had to admit that the younger Winchester had a point. He hadn’t meant to exclude Sam from their mother’s memory like that, but it couldn’t have been helped, could it? It had been too painful to talk about her, and of course he wouldn’t have any direct knowledge of her. How could he be expected to buy into a revenge plan if he had no real attachment to the person being avenged? “What did you expect me to do, Sammy?” he asked quietly.

“Huh?”

“What could I have done differently, so we wouldn’t be having this conversation now?”

Sam actually considered it. He tilted his head to one side. “Well, not standing there while John broke six of my ribs would have been nice,” he said then, “but a ride to the bus station would have been a good second best.”

“Would you have stayed in touch?”

“Maybe. If you promised to keep my location safe from John.” He shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter, Dean. It’s all… you know. You’d still have hated me for going to medical school. And I’d have still gone to medical school.”

“Is being a cop really that dirty?” he asked. “Do you really look down on us that much?”

“What? No! Some people just shouldn’t be cops. I’m one of them. So was John. If you’re happy being a cop or a fed or whatever that’s great, I’m very happy for you. I’m sure you must be good at it if they’re letting you drive the bus on an investigation like this.”

Dean would have been lying if he said he didn’t feel a little bit of pride at that. “Yeah. I do like it. I mean, I like the field office, Henricksen is a good guy to work for. I miss being able to see Ben all the time but you can’t always get what you want, and I get most of his school holidays, you know? It’s nice. He’s a good kid. I’m really proud of him.” He glanced at his brother. “Ever think about having any of your own?”

“No.” He shrugged.

Five full minutes passed in silence. “So you volunteer at a clinic on Saturday mornings, huh?” Dean tried.

“Yeah.”

“They not paying you enough at Morningstar General?”

“That’s not how volunteer works.”

“Then why?” He looked at his brother.

“The clinic needed a doctor. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.”

“No hobbies or nothing?”

The giant sighed. It was easy to see the anger there, roiling just under the skin. So many years of anger and for what? He was the one who had left. He was always going to have left. What was it that Dean really wanted here anyway? He still blamed Sam for leaving, and Sam still blamed Dean for… what? Standing by Dad? “Not to speak of. I work. I work out. I go home.”

“Dr. Sexy reruns?”

“You would like that show.”

“Are you kidding? That show is television gold, brother. Television gold.” Sam was leaning his head on the window now. Even with all of the distance it seemed so incredibly… natural, so normal to have him there in his seat again. Like no time at all had passed. Of course, since it seemed like no time at all had passed he recognized all of the little symptoms even though the face was barely even similar. “Dude, when’s the last time you slept?”

“None of your business, Dean.”

“It is my business, Sammy. If I need to keep you safe then I need to know when you’re off your game. Meg told me she didn’t think you’d been sleeping right anyway, and I can see that little twitch near your eyebrow that you always get when you haven’t been sleeping. Out with it. Come on, level with me.”

Sam looked at him. “You didn’t recognize my damn face but now you remember my eyebrow tics? Unbelievable.”

“I never forgot your eyebrow tic, Sammy. Remember, when you left you were a beanstalk. Too tall already, yeah, but a beanstalk. Now you’re all Gigantor. So, last time you got more than two hours’ sleep or I’m not giving you the combo to the gun safe.”

The look of pure spite Sam shot him dated back twenty years at least. “Monday.”

“Seriously? You haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since Monday?”

“I’ve got the Russian mob after me, I’ve got you trying to force your way back into my life and who knows if you’re going to try to kill me too, there’s all that other crap, yeah, sleep and I aren’t really on speaking terms right now. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not going to try to kill you, Sam. It’s my job to keep you safe. Starting by not giving you the damn gun safe combo until I’ve seen you get eight hours at least. You can use my bed, I’ll take the couch.” He shook his head. How the Hell was he supposed to fix this if his mere presence was causing the kid insomnia?

“Gross. No thanks.”

“I’ll give you clean sheets, geez.”

“Dean, I’ve slept in much worse places than some Fed’s couch. I’ll be fine.” He lapsed into silence again and no attempts on Dean’s part could roust him.

Fortunately traffic was minimal and it wasn’t long before the little caravan pulled into his driveway in Mira Mesa. Dean couldn’t help but feel some nerves as he let the company into his abode. Henricksen and Cas weren’t an issue of course. They knew everything anyway and if there were empty pizza boxes on the coffee table chances were they had something to do with putting them there in the first place. These two, though – these strangers – what would they think as they looked around? Sam’s eyes flicked from window to window to door to door – all of the exits. He did not care about the décor, or about the clutter. Well, that made sense. He’d been trained by John Winchester after all. He knew what was important and he wasn’t trying to connect with an older sibling he’d rejected over ten years ago. He was hiding out in a federal agent’s home. Personal crap didn’t matter if it didn’t give him an advantage. Meg on the other hand took her time looking around the room, bags near the stairs. Her eyes lingered on every portrait. “Is that your mother, Dean-o?” she demanded, gesturing to a picture near Dean’s favorite chair.

“Yeah, that’s me and Mom. Taken when I was a little less than four.” It must have been right before Sammy had been conceived, just him and his mom. He could see the gazebo of the park across the street in the background, American flags waving. “Fourth of July or thereabouts, I guess.”

“And this one must be you and Sam,” she said, coming over to the mantel. Having her pale hands touching his pictures was really making Dean’s skin crawl. She loved his brother, of that he was certain. Dean did not love her, he was equally certain of that. “Look at this, sweet cheeks! You were human sized once!”

“I think he was about twelve there, Meg,” Dean hastened to add. “He didn’t start growing for real until he was what, fifteen? Hell, we all thought he was going to be a runt until one day he woke up and he was my height. Seriously, though, it was all at once too. Boy was a freak.”

“Thanks for that, Dean. Where can I put Meg’s stuff?” Sam asked. He grabbed as many of his friend’s bags as he physically could.

“Upstairs, first door on the left.” Sam left. “Right. He hasn’t slept more than a couple of hours since Monday, he told me,” he informed the doctor. “I told him he’s not getting his guns back until I see he gets at least eight hours.”

“Good luck with that,” she said with a little half smile. “That’s your dad, right?” She pointed at a portrait of their dad in uniform right across from the couch on which Sam would be sleeping.

“Shit. Sorry.” He hesitated for a moment and took the photo down. The wall underneath was clearly a different color – it was obvious that something had been there and hastily removed, and Sam had probably already seen it anyway. So what? Maybe he would appreciate the gesture in the spirit in which it was intended.

Agents filled the house – Henricksen and Cas of course, but also sketch artists and other agents assessing security, taking statements. Sam continued ferrying Meg’s bags upstairs. Dean felt kind of bad about that but none of the other agents seemed inclined to do so and he seemed kind of reluctant to be in the same room with Meg right now. That was probably Dean’s fault, for teasing him about their relationship. She watched him go back and forth without comment. By six o’clock the place was starting to resemble a three-ring circus and a new act had been thrown into the mix. Dean had completely forgotten about his date with Cassie, the anchor from the local news channel. She walked into the house to find it filled with armed agents, most of whom seemed ready to draw on her. “Stand down!” Dean barked in a panic. “Stand down! That’s Cassie, my lady friend!”

She laughed. “’Lady friend,’” she repeated. “That’s so very nineteen fifty-six of you, Winchester.” She kissed him on the cheek. “What’s going on? I thought we had a date.”

“Oh, Cassie, I am so, so sorry. This work thing came up kind of suddenly and we’re using my house as a safe house –“

“Yeah, I kind of figured that when I saw the number of guns in the room.” She waved at Cas, who was working on his laptop. “Looks exciting.”

He shrugged. “We don’t really get involved until it’s exciting for someone,” he pointed out. “I should’ve called, I know, but everything just started moving so fast –“

“Hey, I get it. It’s the risk you take when you’re dating a sexy FBI guy.” Dean wasn’t sure whose bitchface was more epic – Sam’s, Meg’s or Henricksen’s. “You want to reschedule? I mean, it’s not like we had anything specific in mind.”

He made a snap decision. “Well, uh, you know what? We still need to feed the witnesses. It’s not exactly candlelight and roses, but if you’re willing to put up with a few extra people and some takeout I’ll make it up to you.” It might not cure everything but he hoped that it would send the right signals.

“How do you plan to do that, Winchester?”

“I’ll introduce you to my family,” he promised.

“Your family.”

“Sure thing. See, it turns out that one of the witnesses is my long-lost baby brother. Sammy, c’mere. This is Cassie. You’ve probably seen her on the news. Cassie, this is my brother, Sam. He goes by Sam Campbell these days. He’s a surgeon down at –“

She shook his hand, a huge smile lighting up her face. “Morningstar General,” she identified. “You were the surgeon who operated on me after my car accident last year. That was before I met Dean, I’m afraid. It’s nice to see you when I’m a little less doped up.”

Sam put on a professional smile and accepted the greetings. “Nice to see you too, Ms. Roberts,” he greeted.

“Cassie,” she corrected. “Dean, you didn’t even mention you had a brother in the area!”

“I didn’t know I had a brother in the area until last week,” he admitted. “Maybe we’re reconnecting in a roundabout way but hey – at least we’re reconnecting, right?” Sam and Meg gave tight smiles. Cassie’s was brighter. Dean hadn’t planned to do the whole family-introduction thing until August, but then again he hadn’t known he had a family to introduce closer than Virginia until last week. And having made a point of proudly introducing Sam to Cassie should have made it clear to Sam that he was proud of him, that he actually wanted his brother in his life.

Dean had issues, and he knew he had issues. Sometimes he had to take a step back and admit to himself though – he was pretty awesome.

Eventually statements were taken, preliminary sketches were made – lots of them – and a schedule was drawn up for agents to be on guard at the house. (And that didn’t creep Dean out at all, having his colleagues running around his house while he slept.) Sam and Meg called Nick from Dean’s secure line to let him know that something had come up and where they could be reached. As of now they’d be allowed in to work normal hours with an escort. Sam chafed at the caveat. Meg smirked and hoped that they could keep up. Then most of the extraneous staff went away. All that was left were the core three Feds, Cassie and the doctors with an Indian takeout menu. Cas and Sam went to pick it up, and for a little while it almost seemed like a normal group of friends enjoying a Saturday evening together. There were beers. Cassie had met Henricksen and Cas before of course, so the atmosphere between the four of them was pretty relaxed. Meg’s hostility toward Dean himself seemed to have abated a little when she saw him take down the portrait of his father and she seemed to get along okay with the other agents. She asked for – and got – stories of some of their exploits. Dean preferred to tell the more dashing stories – taking down bank robbers or working counterterrorism cases. Cas and Henricksen on the other hand liked the ones that took Dean down a peg or two, like the one where he’d been held hostage by teenaged girls who thought federal crime was a great way to get out of serving detention. Or the one with the cat-smuggling ring that left him sneezing non-stop for a week. Sam had waited until the last moment to choose a seat and had chosen a seat as far from Meg as possible. Dean couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about that, but really – how could a thirty year old guy seriously be such a teenaged girl about a little teasing? And why wouldn’t he go for it? He didn’t contribute much to the dinner conversation, neither asking questions nor reacting much to the stories told. He mostly watched people in silence. “Sam, you must have some fun stories about Dean from when you were kids,” Cassie invited.

He took a sip from his beer. He’d barely touched his food, Dean noticed, mostly moved it around his plate. He’d been nursing the same beer all night. “Sorry,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of stories, I’m afraid. It was all pretty run-of-the-mill, nothing interesting to tell.”

“Well, what was he like?” Henricksen pressed. “As a kid, I mean. As a teenager.”

Sam paused. “He was a good son.”

Meg intervened. She didn’t glance at the distance between herself and her colleague. “So how does this work, anyway? A Fed and a reporter dating has got to get pretty awkward sometimes.”

“We were all a little nervous at first,” Dean’s boss admitted. “It seemed like one of those train wrecks that you just can’t look away from, but they seem to have a good handle on the line between professional and private.”

“You’ve known Sam for what, six years now?” Cas challenged. “You must have some stories to share.” 

“Med school and residency doesn’t exactly lead to the kind of stories being a cop does,” the doctor demurred. “It’s not exactly a thrilling adventure ride and when it is it’s usually because something’s gone horribly wrong like it did last week. It’s mostly just exams and dead bodies and bad smells.”

“How did you two meet?” Cassie wanted to know.

The doctors exchanged glances. Dean wouldn’t have noticed Sam’s shrug if he hadn’t been looking for a response. He was giving permission. “It was at some kind of outing for the residents at Fenway,” she explained. “There was this guy in the stands who was a little more attentive than he needed to be. When he got physical Sam intervened.”

“Meg was perfectly capable of dealing with the guy herself,” Sam hastened to assure everyone. “She just didn’t need to that day.” Meg just smirked. 

Eventually the evening wore down. Henricksen and Cas went home. Cassie stayed, much to Dean’s delight. The agent taking the overnight shift arrived. Meg went upstairs to the guest room although not without going to Sam’s suitcase, opening it and pulling out a prescription bottle. “You’re taking these.” She put the bottle into his hand but didn’t let go, black eyes meeting hazel and not flinching.

“You’re kidding,” Sam objected. Meg was as close as he’d allowed anyone all night. “We’re in a completely alien environment, Meg. We don’t know any of these people from, from, circus clowns.” It would have been insulting if not for Sam’s deep-seated phobia of grease paint and squeaky shoes.

“Their job is to keep us safe, Sam. I’m here, I’m right upstairs if you need me. Your brother is here and I really doubt he’s going to do anything to hurt you right now. Not in front of his girlfriend. You’re no good to anyone if you’re falling over from fatigue, Sam, or if you’re not thinking clearly. You need to sleep.” She kept her eyes on his and didn’t move her tiny hand until his massive one clenched around the bottle. He looked away as her hand caressed his face lightly and stepped back, away to open the bottle and take two pills. She actually counted them before putting them back into his suitcase. “Good doctor. You can have a biscuit in the morning.”

Sam glared and took a place on the couch. Dean got him a blanket that was acknowledged with the coldest of thank yous before the rest of the household retired for the night. No one said anything about the sleeping pills.

The next morning Cassie woke Dean up with a kiss. It was a nice way to wake up, nicer than Dean’s usual alarm clock and cursing. He didn’t have any problem with letting it develop into something a little more intense either, followed by a leisurely shower. He might have heard a door open downstairs, but it was probably just the changing of the shifts for the duty agent. He might have heard Meg’s door open and shut as well but hey – she had the run of the place and he had much more interesting things on his mind than his brother’s keeper/not-a-girlfriend/whatever. After their shower when they were washed and dressed the pair made their way downstairs to find coffee made with eggs and fruit already prepared. Meg was reading the paper, sharing it with Castiel. The couch was empty. The blanket was folded ever so neatly on the center cushion. “Where’s Sammy?” Dean asked, grabbing coffee for himself and his lady.

“He went for a run,” Meg informed.

Dean’s coffee flew across the room. Neither Cas nor Meg seemed to look up but both dodged the flow so that it only splashed across the wall. “He what?” the homeowner roared. 

“A run,” the doctor repeated. “It’s where a person puts one foot in front of the other, really fast. Sam’s a marathoner. Thought you knew.” She speared a piece of cut mango with her fork and ate it, not looking up from the “Science” section.

“Cas, you let him go?” the older brother seethed. 

“Not I,” his partner demurred, eating from a box of doughnuts he’d evidently brought. “He and Wilson discussed the matter thoroughly. According to Wilson she tried to dissuade him. He told her that unless she planned to arrest him he was going to do his running. She asked what he would do if she tried to take him into custody. He told her he would make it look like a heart attack and she desisted.” 

“He threatened a federal agent?” Cassie blinked. 

“Yeah, apparently it’s required behavior at Morningstar General.” Dean carefully put his coffee down before punching the door. “Damn it! What time did he leave?” 

Cas checked the log. “Seven minutes after eight.”

Meg checked her watch. “He should be back in the next ten or fifteen minutes,” she assured him. “He’s not usually out more than two and a half hours unless he’s actively training for something specific.” But they weren’t sleeping together. Right.

“What the hell was he thinking? There are people trying to kill him! That’s why he’s here instead of at home in his own damn bed!” Dean started pacing. “All right, we’re going to need three cars, we’re going to need the locals –

“ “Dean, don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Cas wanted to know. “No one knows he’s here. Outside the field office and his own office no one knows you’re related, there’s no reason for anyone to suspect he’d be with you or anywhere near Mira Mesa.” He turned to Meg. “I’ll trade you the ‘Arts and Culture’ section for the ‘Science’ section if you’re done.”

She met his eyes and waited a moment, just long enough for a little bit of pink to form above the former lawyer’s stubble line. “Sure thing, Clarence.” They exchanged sections of newsprint. “Hey, does that log of yours say how much sleep Jolly Green got?”

Cas checked. “Says he started doing calisthenics at about seven thirty.”

“Seven hours, not long enough to get his guns back.” Dean shook his head and resumed pacing.

“It’s better than he’s been all week,” Meg argued.

The door opened and in walked a sweat-soaked Sam. The guy looked like he had just climbed out of the community pool. His tee shirt and shorts absolutely clung to him. “What?” he asked when he saw Dean, Cassie and Cas staring at him.

“What? What?” Dean raged. “What gave you the idea that running by yourself in a strange part of town when a bunch of organized criminals are trying to kill you is a good idea?”

He shrugged. “Meg was safe, right?”

“I do my exercise in the gym, sweet cheeks. And never before noon.” She speared a little more fruit.

“Meg’s not their primary target, Sam. You are.” Dean stepped into his brother’s space now, inhaling the stink of his sweat. “The whole point of uprooting you and having you sleep on a couch instead of where you’re more comfortable and where you feel more safe is because they want to kill you, not her. So that means that you can’t be running around showing yourself and revealing your location. I know you’re not an idiot, Sammy, because you scored a free ride to Stanford and you graduated early and all that but goddamn –“

Sam held up a hand and gently, gently eased Dean back. “Got a lot of leads overnight did you?” His words stabbed. His tone, though, soothed. His eyes – there was no way to know what was going on there. “Look, Dean, they’re a problem. But I’m only here because they’re targeting Meg now, okay? I’m not stopping everything that I do because of them, and if they get me because I run or if they get me because I keep working then they do. The worst they can do is kill me.” His voice was calm, soft. Dean couldn’t help but hear Cassie’s intake of breath at his last sentence, but Sam didn’t really even seem to notice. “It’s nice that you want me to stay here and it’s nice that you want to try to protect me. Thank you. But I’m not giving up my life. I can either do the things that are important to me from here and you can keep an eye on me here, or I can do the things that are important to me from home and you can keep an eye on Meg from here. Dealer’s choice.” Their eyes stayed locked for a full minute. Dean wanted to reach out and shake his brother, but there was nothing he could latch onto. Nothing physical – there was nothing soft about him – and nothing in his argument. He had to look away.

“Go shower,” he said instead. “You stink.”

“Natural by-product of running, Dean.” A good half of the tension went out of the room. “You should try it sometime, especially judging by the contents of your refrigerator.” His head was already in his suitcase, rummaging for clothing.

“I run,” he countered. “If someone’s chasing me.”

After Sam showered he re-joined them in the kitchen. Dean tried to foist some breakfast on him but he was only willing to accept coffee. “So Sammy,” Dean began. “You want to elaborate on what you told me yesterday in the car?”

“We talked about a lot of things in the car, Dean.” The left side of Sam’s face wrinkled in confusion. “What’s got you worked up?”

“The Russians. You said you’ve had Russian problems before.”

Sam sighed. “Right. You probably don’t want to know this.”

“I think he does want to know this, Sam,” Cas intoned drily. “He is the one asking. Apparently for the second time.”

“And I’m not driving the car either. So what’s so earth-shattering that it needed to be saved until the plane came to a complete stop and the trays were in an upright and locked position?”

Sam sighed again and his shoulders slumped for a moment. “All right. Did you ever wonder why we never met anyone from the Campbell side of the family, Dean?”

“They all died, Sam.” Dean frowned. “Come on, you remember this fight. You were about ten, you waited until he got good and drunk and you asked him that same goddamn question. ‘Dad, why don’t we have any grandparents from Mom’s side?’” Kid had never stopped asking questions, although questions about Mom had never really been welcomed by either of the men who knew her.

“Maybe you should have a chat with your boss. Mom’s father wasn’t dead.”

“Come on, Sam. He’s been a doornail for decades.”

“No. I’ve met him.” He stood up again, sipped from his coffee. “Campbell wasn’t Mom’s actual name. It was an assumed name. Mom’s family was deeply involved in the Russian mob and she turned. She ratted and she was in witness protection. She was killed because her family found her.”

Dean’s mouth dried. His knees trembled, rebelled against his weight. Cassie managed to get a chair under him. “How could you possibly – no. You’re lying.”

Hazel eyes rolled until the whites reflected the sun. “Check with your US Marshalls or whoever deals with witness protection these days, I don’t keep track. They did such a bang-up job with Mom that I’m not really interested.” A massive hand waved, long fingers scattering the air. “I know because they tracked me down at Stanford. I’d taken her maiden name as a surname to keep myself safe from all the Winchester bullshit…” He shook his head. “Anyway. Samuel really was his name, if you’re curious.”

“Was, not is.”

“He’s dead now.” Sam looked straight at the wall and drank his coffee.

“Can you prove it?”

He scoffed. “What, that Samuel’s not walking the earth anymore? Sorry, no. I don’t think the DNA testing facilities there are exactly up to snuff. But I can prove to you that they caught up with me.” He stripped off his shirt, revealing a massive scar on his chest. The scar pattern was intricate, deliberate. Dean had seen it before. “That one is the mark of one of the gangs that were rivals to Samuel’s family.” He turned around, revealing a different (and newer-looking) scar on his back. “That one comes from dear old granddad himself.” Dean gaped. 

Cas, having better presence of mind and maybe more coffee, grabbed his phone and started snapping pictures. “Seriously?” Meg asked.

“It’s evidence,” Dean’s friend replied simply.

Sam’s cheeks burned. “Can I put some clothes back on please?” he growled.

“No no no, sweet cheeks. You’ve worked too hard on those abs to keep them all hidden away.” Meg grinned wickedly behind her coffee cup as Sam turned around again, making the front symbol available to Cas. “I mean, really. You could scrub your clothes on those.” He glared at her. “I hadn’t seen the one on your back before. It’s new.”

“About two years.”

“I’m all done, Sam,” Cas told him.

The shirt went back on faster than a body should move. They weren’t Sam’s only scars of course – he had plenty of them. They were the only ones that seemed to be purely decorative. “You do realize that this changes things, Sam. You might have been the target the whole time.”

“He wasn’t,” Meg inserted, a little more forcefully. “Your grandfather’s organization is –

“ “Dead,” Sam said. “Look it up.” He grabbed his coffee. “I’ll be outside.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts. 
> 
> Seriously, though, Sam and Meg are surgeons in this AU, so if guts 'n' gore make you uncomfortable you might want to skip over the last quarter of this chapter.

Sam’s sulk-fest lasted pretty much the whole day. He stayed outside on the patio and showed no interest in communicating with anyone. Meg went inside and got him a couple of books from his bag as well as his phone but seemed content to leave him alone to brood in peace. “Is he like this a lot?” Dean asked, annoyed.  


“Only if he has to think about things he’d rather not. I don’t think he said three words after he escaped in Somalia, not until I got him back here and cleaned up and interviewing at Morningstar.” She spoke quietly. “He has his good days and bad days. He came back different, that’s for sure.”  


“A traumatizing event will do that,” Cas observed. “He’s lucky to have you to care for him.”  


“It’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me. Hasn’t done for me.” She shrugged. “I’d fee better if he were more enthusiastic about life again but whatever. I know I can’t expect everything.”  


“He used to be?” Cassie asked.  


“Oh yeah. He had the most amazing smile, with these dimples. I’ve known people who would do anything just for a glimpse. He’d find something to get into and he’d almost bounce he’d get so excited.”  


“I remember,” Dean smiled.  


“And Meg? What are you excited about?” Castiel wanted to know. Their eyes met. Dean and Cassie gave them some privacy.  


They decided to dine in that evening. Cassie was going home, but Dean’s partner agreed to stay even though he was not on duty. The homeowner went out and bought what he needed for burgers. They were his best dish, after all. He Skyped with Ben, who didn’t need to know that his lost-and-found uncle was in residence but in too much of a snit to talk to him right now. Then he did some work and before he knew it, it was time to get dinner ready.  


Sam didn’t approach while Dean set up the grill but he watched. The elder could feel those hazel eyes on him. “You gonna sit there starin’ or you gonna talk, Sammy?” he asked.  


“It’s Sam.” The voice was already moving though, and he accepted the beer that Dean pressed into his hand. “Burgers, huh?”  


“My burgers kick ass, Sammy. They always did, and now I’ve got a grill of my own there are none better.”  


“You did make a decent burger for cooking indoors,” the younger acknowledged. “You weren’t a bad cook. Pretty good for all that no one ever taught you.”  


Dean blinked. “Did you just say something nice to me?”  


The taller man chuckled a bit. “Don’t get used to it.”  


“Promise I won’t.” They stared at the burgers for a moment. “Trouble doesn’t half but find you.”  


“Heh. Yeah. So how did you and Cassie meet?”  


“Working on a case. The reporter for her station hooked us up. We’ve only been seeing each other for a few months. Nice lady. I like her.”  


“Never would’ve figured you for the settling down type,” Sam commented. “Look at you. Kid, you’ve been married, you’ve got a long-term girlfriend…” He shook his head. “Do you own a lawnmower too?”  


“Nah, the homeowner’s association has that stuff covered.” He waved a hand. “I guess it’s a little weird, but yeah. I like domesticity. I guess I always figured you for the domestic type.”  


“Me too. It just never worked out that way.”  


“Dude, you’re thirty. You’ve got time.” His blood ran cold at his brother’s shrug but he didn’t want to risk another sulk-fest. Instead he flipped the burgers.  


“So your buddy Castiel,” Sam began after a few moments’ quiet. “You’ve known him a while?”  


“Yeah. Yeah, since the Academy so what, eight years now? He got the transfer out here with me, we’ve been partners and friends the whole time. Why?”  


“He stable? Like emotionally and stuff?”  


“What? Yeah. He’s downright stolid. Stodgy even. Why?”  


“Just curious.” He drank from his beer.  


“Is this because he’s flirting with Meg?”  


He shrugged again. “She deserves someone nice in her life. Someone good, you know? If she likes him and he treats her well. Something good should come of all this.”  


He glanced at the taller man. “I’m standing here making burgers with my brother for the first time in twelve years, man. Something good’s already here.” The answering smile never reached the doctor’s eyes and the tension never left his body but at least he made an attempt to respond. “Hey, remember that year when we got all those fireworks and lit them off for the fourth of July?”  


Now there was a glimpse of the real smile, with the dimples and everything. “Yeah, I remember that.” He took a pull off his beer. “Scorched the field too.”  


“You got us out of it, though. You always did.”  


“Heh. Not always.”  


“Nine times out of ten. Remember when we used to go target shooting in the woods behind the school?”  


“Is that what you called it? I’d bring the guns, you’d ditch me and meet up with a girl.”  


“You needed more practice. I’m still probably a better shot than you are.” He started pulling burgers off the grill.  


“Could be,” Sam said, holding the plate. “I wouldn’t say I’m a slouch though.” They went inside. “Soup’s on!”  


The other two came to the table, followed by Agent Donovan. Dean fetched the sides and drinks and dinner commenced. After dinner – a dinner featuring much praise of Dean’s burger-making skill – they retreated to the living room for the game. Sam and Meg had some sort of regular Monday meeting to prepare for but that didn’t prevent them from hanging out with the others while they did so. Cas conspicuously took a seat near Meg on the couch, prompting Sam to get up and move to one of the recliners. Meg’s response was a little hard for Dean to read. She watched him go with curiosity, maybe a little sadness.  


The next morning was amore of the same, although Sam’s run took place earlier and the duty agent shift was just changing so Donovan was willing to follow him in his car. Dean and his houseguests went to work. They had to separate leads to work. They had the Albanian hitmen and they had Sam. Cas agreed to work the Albanian angle. Dean went after the direct Sam angle, and wasn’t that just the weirdest feeling? Henricksen used his State Department contacts to move things along at that level.  


As near as Dean could tell all direct evidence relating to the symbols Sam had identified as being associated with their grandfather had ceased two years ago. A lot of their American activity had actually been centered in Boston. The old man himself hadn’t been seen or heard from in two years – co-incident with Sam’s escape from Somalia – and none of his senior lieutenants had put themselves forward. The symbol on his chest was more problematic and consequently more promising. That group was active on the west coast and had actually been pretty active in recent weeks. Cas found out from one of the migrants that the people who had taken their money in Guatemala originally had been Russian. When shown a picture of Sam’s torso the man had refused to speak any more, except to offer condolences on Cas’ friend.  


He was due to take custody of his brother and Meg at noon, so he drove over in the Impala. It turned out that there was an empty office in the diagnostic department that they were willing to let the agent on duty use when the doctors being watched needed privacy. When he arrived Sam was consulting with a patient, but Meg was available. “How’s it going?” he asked her.  


“It’s going,” she replied. “Checking in with someone every time I need to pee is making me feel like I’m ten again but I get why you need me to do it. It helps when at least one of the agents is all pretty.”  


“You mean Cas.”  


She leered. “You all jealous, Dean-o?”  


“He’s a grown-ass man. He can take care of himself. It’s just that when I met you I could have sworn you had something going with Sam.”  


She laughed, a dry laugh that had more than a little of the element of force behind it. “Look at you getting all big brother all of a sudden. Did he say something to you?”  


“He said that you certainly wouldn’t be interested in anything now. Whatever that means. What is it that you want from him, Meg? I don’t want to see him get hurt worse. He’s obviously in a bad place, you know, mentally, and you’re all he thinks he has.”  


“I am all he has,” she snarled. “Let’s see you stick around for a while without judging him and maybe you’ll get to have a say. But as long as… Look, he’s not… The guy’s been a monk since Somalia. He shows no signs that he wants to stop being a monk. Fine. I’ll respect that. I won’t stop loving him. I’ll never stop loving him or taking care of him as best I can. But I don’t need to be a nun to do that, and he gets that. He wouldn’t want that for me any more than I want that for him.”  


“If he’s happy…”  


“Does he look happy to you?” She snorted. “Obviously I can’t make him happy. But I can try to hold him together. Is that a good enough answer?”  


“It’ll have to be. Although I think – don’t quote me here – he might just need a little encouragement. I think he’s got his head stuck somewhere – “ The door to Sam’s office opened and he stopped himself. “Anyway, your choice. Sam! Buddy! Donovan says you’re nuts. He followed your route this morning, he told me.”  


“He should try following part of it on foot, maybe his arteries wouldn’t be clogging on him.” He folded his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on in here, Dean?”  


“I’m the duty agent for the next eight hours so Meg and I figured we’d snipe at each other for a bit,” he explained.  


“Keeps things fresh,” Meg agreed, wrinkling her nose.  


“She does have a job to do, Dean. And don’t you have a girlfriend?” He shook his head and went back to his office. Dean followed. “What can I do for you, Dean?”  


“Talk to me, Sammy. Anything exciting happen today?”  


He contemplated. “We ruled out the first case of polio in the US in fifty-odd years. Turned out it’s a degenerative neurological disorder instead, but we can treat it.” He shrugged. “Then we had this guy that everyone thought had an intestinal tumor. Get this – he had actual mushrooms growing in his actual abdominal cavity. No joke. Actual mushrooms.”  


“I think your definition of exciting needs some work when all this is over, Sammy – wait, did you say mushrooms?”  


“Real honest mushrooms. I don’t know if you’d want to eat them but they are indeed mushrooms.”  


Dean paused. “Huh. I still think we need to get you to a bar and a baseball game when we’re done with this but I’ll admit the mushroom thing is at least weird.” He shook his head. “I meant in terms of visitors or calls or contact from our friends from Mother Russia.”  


“Oh.” One tiny corner of his brother’s mouth quirked as he made some entries in his computer. He’d been joking, at least partially. It was progress. “No unexpected guests. What about your end? Find anything yet?”  


“The fun marks on your chest make some of the migrants shut up awfully fast,” he supplied, taking out his phone. “Other than that we’re kind of lacking in a Russian translator so we’re kind of stalled. Why? Getting sick of me already?”  


“It would be nice to sleep in my own bed for a change. Your couch is short.”  


“Go share the guest bed.”  


“Don’t even start that again. I’ll shoot.”  


“I locked up your guns.”  
“I already figured out your combo. And reorganized your gun safe. Thing was an unholy mess. Anyway, if you need a translator I can help.”  


“Since when do you speak Russian?”  


“Ninth grade. Remember that program that had me taking classes at the community college?” Dean nodded. “That was one of the ones I took and I kept it up. Thought I’d meet girls with a minor in Russian lit at Stanford.” He gave a bitter little laugh.  


“I’m guessing it was successful.”  


“You have no idea. Anyway, the whole point is that I’m fluent and I can do whatever translating you need if you need it in a hurry. If you need it to go through official channels it’s fine, whatever, but I’m just saying it’s out there.” His desk phone rang. “Campbell. Yeah. I’ve got this Fed – have you spoken to Dr. Masters? Okay. Fine. We’ll all go.” He hung up and gave Dean a manic grin. “All right, you wanted excitement Dean. Massive pile-up on I-5, they need me and Meg in surgery. You know what that means?”  


“We’re going to Disneyland?”  


“No. Come on, someone will help you find some scrubs and tell you what to do.” He was already getting rid of his jacket and tie. “When we get into the OR try to stay out of the way and don’t pass out.”  


Dean’s stomach lurched. “Is there any other way…”  


“Dude, you’re the one who wanted to follow two surgeons around. Come on. Can’t let people linger.” He’d changed his shoes and was already out the door. Dean was left to chase along after him, struggling to catch up. Meg was already halfway to the elevator. The brothers managed to catch her up, though, and the trio made their way to the emergency department.  


As near as Dean could tell the pile-up involved some ten vehicles, one of which was a passenger van and one of which was a tractor-trailer. The trailer had jackknifed into a Prius, acting like a pinball machine. A nurse had been freed up by a grudging miracle to scrub Dean in and he mostly stood back and tried not to look. Sam wasn’t the only trauma surgeon on staff of course but he was the best. The first case brought in was a lung case – the steering column of the Prius had impaled the driver’s left lung and Dean had no idea how the guy had survived this long. Hearing his brother call for the spreader almost made him throw up a little bit but he managed to get himself under control.  


They had to take their paper gowns off and wash up to go talk to the man’s family, explaining the injury and recovery process. Apparently the guy had lost a portion of the lung but that was okay. It didn’t sound okay to Dean, but hearing Sam’s calm and gentle tone he could almost believe it. After all, cancer patients often lost portions of their lungs and went on to live productive and relatively normal lives, didn’t they? There was no reason he wouldn’t be able to do the same. Sam did most of the talking, Meg almost none. Meg didn’t do warm-and-fuzzy well, except with Sam. Sam was good at warm-and-fuzzy.  


Of course the whole talking-to-the-families thing gave the staff time to clean an OR and prep another patient. The scrubbing-in process began again and he found himself in a surgery dealing with a lower abdominal injury. This one was exceptionally foul. A section of the victim’s lower intestine needed to come out thanks to what looked like a portion of a car door. The smell was overwhelming. Sam offered to rock-paper-scissors Meg for who got to “do the bag” and Dean so didn’t know more about that. “He cheats,” he warned to avoid any technical or graphic discussion.  


“It’s not cheating when you use the same sign every time Dean,” Sam pointed out. “Always with the paper.”  


“I’m thirty-three, boys,” Meg sighed. “I’m not doing rock-paper-scissors for the bag. You got it last time, Sam. I’ll get it this time. You get to stitching.”  


Dean stared at the ceiling and breathed through his mouth.  


The two surgeries took him to the end of his shift. Agent O’Rourke came on, enabling Dean to go home. Cas and Henricksen had called three times and once respectively during the crisis. He called his boss first and explained. The senior agent was fine with it, although he was less enthusiastic about agents in the OR. “That’s just nasty, man,” he said when told about the colostomy. “They’re still there?”  


“Yeah, I think they’ll be there for a while. Better O’Rourke than me. What’s up?”  


“I wanted to give you the heads up. Homeland is taking custody of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Ugly. I’ve tried to keep hold of them myself but no dice. I’ve already told Cas but I wanted to make sure you knew.”  


Cas’ information was even more useful. He’d met with an informant who pointed out a potential link between the Russian group that initially held Sam and the Albanians. He’d even gotten an emergency warrant to tap their phones all the way in Chicago, so surveillance had already begun. He stopped by the house with pizza to have for when the doctors got back with their babysitter.  


That didn’t happen until at least ten o’clock, when the pair stumbled in, followed by O’Rourke. Fortunately they were both clean. They accepted the pizza. Sam even ate an entire piece, astonishing both of the people desperately trying to mother-hen him. Cas spent time flirting with Meg while Sam worked on his notes. He didn’t even look up when Meg tried to engage him in the flirtation, which made Dean shake his head. You could lead a horse to water…  


The next day he and Cas brought the first batch of Russian recordings over to the hospital. Dr. Pellegrino met them there, displeased about paying one of his doctors to do the government’s translating for them, but when said doctor suggested that it would get the federal agents out of his office sooner he became more cooperative “so long as it doesn’t interfere with patient care.” Hours kept were comparatively normal and everyone was home and dry before seven. (The duty agent followed Meg and Sam to the gym after work, which was how Dean learned his brother had been taking it easy in terms of his workout regimen. He also suggested that the Bureau employ Sam as a consultant to get the situation response team into shape.) The next couple of days proceeded apace. Dean’s houseguests were quiet for the most part. Meg agreed to a movie date with Cas for Friday night. Sam showed no reaction. Dean would have given up if he hadn’t seen Meg give a worried glance in Sam’s direction when she accepted.


	6. Chapter 6

It was Thursday before Dean heard from the locals again. He was at his desk in his own office – thank God, he didn’t get stuck following the doctors around more than he had to – when the phone rang. “Winchester,” he greeted.

“Agent Winchester, this is Gordon Walker. We met during that hostage situation at Morningstar General.” Right. He remembered Walker. He’d almost forgotten the sergeant, but his face sprang to mind as soon as he heard the name.

“Oh, yeah. You worked with my dad in San Francisco. How’s it going, man?”

“Not too badly, not too badly at all. How are things on your end? I heard that your investigation has gotten hot, you’ve got a couple of doctors under federal protection.”

“Yeah, well, turns out that the gang involved is targeting … you know what? Why don’t we get together and talk about this face to face. I’m sure you’ve got a good local perspective on things – hell, I’ve only lived here for a couple of years. You doing anything for lunch?” The local agreed to meet up with him at a burger joint they both knew and Dean grabbed Cas and made his way there.

“You looking forward to your big date with Meg?” he asked by way of conversation.

Cas glanced at him. “I am. She is an interesting woman.”

“That’s one way of putting it. I think if you hurt her my little brother might waste you, though.”

“I am unconcerned.”

“I wouldn’t be so blasé. He’s badass.”

“I am a federal agent, Dean. He is a doctor. And I have no intention of hurting Meg.” His lip quirked up. “Have you spoken to Cassie?”

“Huh. No, not in a few days. I should really give her a call.” It was true, he and Cassie hadn’t spoken in days. That was problematic. Huh. He’d gotten so wrapped up in this case that he’d lost track of time. After he pulled into a parking spot he made a point of texting her to tell her so.

Walker was already there, in a booth near the back. He smiled when he saw the agents. “Good to see you both!” he greeted, shaking hands. “Have you eaten here before? Best burgers in the county. In the county!”

“We’ll see about that,” Dean challenged. “I make a pretty awesome burger myself.” He grinned. “How’s tricks been for you, Walker? I saw you guys got a pretty juicy homicide on Monday.”

“Yeah, it was juicy all right. Jealous wife took her husband’s head clean off with his shop equipment. There is no way they’re getting the blood out of the walls there, man. No way.” The waiter, some college kid who’d only just arrived, paled. “Sorry, man. I’ll have the special, medium.”

“I’ll have the bacon double cheeseburger, medium-rare,” Dean ordered.

“I’ll have the same,” Cas added. “They can do wonderful things with chemistry these days, I hear. There are whole companies devoted to crime scene cleanup.”

“I don’t know, man. It got into the ceiling, into the cracks – anyway.” Other patrons in the crowded diner were turning to stare. “Maybe not an appropriate conversation for a public place. Or at least not a dining establishment. Civilians aren’t always strong of stomach.”

Cas’ eye twitched but Dean couldn’t fault the sentiment. It was true, after all. Cops saw all sorts of things that made non-cops all nauseous and upset. Of course, he supposed he wasn’t in a position to cast stones. “These things are relative. I got stuck watching an emergency colostomy the other day and let me tell you, I almost lost it.”

“Oh, so it’s true? You do have two doctors under federal protection?” Walker leaned forward, lowering his voice a little. “I thought only one of them was involved with the hostage incident.”

“Yeah. Well, he started getting followed and he went to go stay with his friend, and they started to target her too, so now they’re both being protected.” He shrugged.

“One of those doctors is Sam Campbell, right?”

Dean’s blood ran cold but he kept his face neutral. The guy had been there when the situation had broken out, right? He’d seen Sam respond to the page. He’d seen everything unfold. “Yeah. Campbell is one of the doctors involved. Apparently the gang involved really doesn’t like it when a mere doctor concusses one of their hit men and shoots another. They tend to be protective of their assets.”

“Yeah, well, Campbell knew what he was getting into better than anyone.” He snorted. Their meals arrived just then and he ate one of his fries. “He should have thought of that before he decided to go all Rambo on those guys.”

“I don’t believe that he was aware of the identity of the hostage takers before he became involved,” Cas hazarded as Dean tasted his burger. Walker hadn’t been wrong about the quality. These were the best commercially available burgers in the county, it was true. His were still better.

“Maybe not, maybe not. I don’t know. I wouldn’t be a hundred percent sure, though.” He shrugged and bit into his own burger. “What did I tell you, Winchester? Best in the county.”

“What do you mean, you wouldn’t be a hundred percent? Are you suggesting that Campbell is somehow tied into all this?” Dean put his own burger down.

“He and your father had a history. You know that, right?” He glanced between the agents. Dean fought to keep his face neutral. “I guess he didn’t mention that before he passed. I know I mentioned I worked with your father back in San Francisco. He and his partner Bill were working this case, looking for some Russians. Just like now. Well, Bill got shot and wasn’t it just a coincidence that it was Dr. Campbell that wound up working on Bill Harvelle?

“Oh, the hospital staff were very reassuring that ‘oh, Dr. Campbell is an incredible surgeon, don’t worry, he’ll be fine,’ but somehow this ‘incredible surgeon’ couldn’t manage to pull a bullet out of Bill Harvelle’s lung without shredding it beyond repair in the process. Or letting him bleed out. I never did get an explanation for that. So Campbell comes out to explain that the patient ‘didn’t make it’ and John just pulls a knife out of somewhere, I can’t even remember, and stabs Campbell right in the gut. He knew what was up.

“Well, the hospital wasn’t pressing charges. I should’ve arrested him on the spot but I didn’t. I mean, the guy had just lost his partner and I was pretty suspicious about that whole thing, you know? So I took John home, got him cleaned up. Talked to him a bit, you know? Asked him why he stabbed the doctor, beyond the obvious. He didn’t want to say too much, but he did tell me that ‘the boy was in it, in it with them. If he’s not for us he’s against us, and with them.’ So I got to thinking, and I went to the hospital. I sat there outside his room while he recovered from the surgery. That pretty little doctor from Morningstar was there, Masters I think is her name. She came to visit him a lot; I think she’s the one who stitched him back together. He had a few other visitors, but there was only one who came and spoke to him in Russian.”

“In Russian?” Dean repeated. He couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers.

“Yeah. In Russian.”

“Can you tell me more about this conversation?” Cas leaned back, eyes on their companion. 

Walker shook his head. “It was short, that’s all I know. I don’t actually speak Russian, you know. But the guy coming out was on the tall side, bald as a cue ball. Tattoos.”

“Would you be willing to speak to a sketch artist down at the field office?”

“Sure, man. Soon as my shift is over I’ll come down.” He gave an easy, slow grin. “How’s your burger?” Their conversation turned to more general topics – the general crappiness of the Padres, the superiority of burgers over every other fuel source and how law enforcement was really the only career choice for any of them. Dean got through the conversation on autopilot. Was Walker really suggesting that Sam was mixed up in the Russian mob? That he’d actually been involved in Bill Harvelle’s death? Possibly their father’s? He couldn’t really fathom it. At the same time, Sammy hadn’t hesitated to pull the trigger on the creep in the hospital. And there was something distinctly… broken… about his brother now. The sleeping pills, the “monkish” behavior Meg had described. Teenaged Sam had been many things but a monk had not been one of them. And his unwillingness to even consider the possibility of a family life despite his youth… From what Walker had said their father had believed it about Sam. John had been an obsessive jerk and a drunk, but he’d also been a damn good cop. Maybe he’d had some information that he hadn’t passed on.

Cas filched the keys from him and drove back to the field office. As soon as the doors were closed he turned to his partner. “You look distressed.”

“I am ‘distressed,’ Cas. I just found out Sammy’s been keeping secrets.” He rubbed his face. Why did he suddenly feel like he’d been awake for forty-eight straight hours? He’d gotten plenty of sleep last night. “Do you think there’s anything to what Walker’s saying?”

“Do I believe your brother is mixed up in the Russian mob? It is possible. By his own admission he’s been held captive twice, by rival factions. The idea of a civilian escaping twice strains credulity, especially since there appears to be no police record of his first encounter. At the same time he’s been nothing but cooperative with regards to our investigation and every lead he’s turned up in the course of his translation work has panned out so far. I would recommend that you speak with him.”

“Aw, man. We’re Winchesters. We don’t ‘talk.’ We shout.”

“And apparently stab. I recommend a different course of action, but they are your carpets. I am happy to come over and mediate if you wish.”

“You just want to come see Hot Doctor again.”

A tinge of pink might or might not have graced his partner’s cheeks. “Meg can hardly be an impartial referee when it comes to Sam, Dean.”

“True that.” He sighed. “Do you think she knows he’s dirty?” 

Blue eyes glanced at him. “You’ve already condemned him.”

“I don’t know, Cas. I just don’t.” It was a lie. Sam had run off to Stanford, abandoning the family and their mission. He was not what could be called trustworthy. Gordon Walker was a cop. He was furthermore a cop who had worked with John Winchester.

Cas did come over that night. They had Indian food ready and waiting when Sam and Meg got back from the gym. Meg looked genuinely pleased to see Cas but both doctors picked up on the tension in the room immediately. The duty agent – Park – raised an eyebrow. “No guns, guys,” he insisted, took his curry and stepped back.

“What’s going on, Dean-o?” Meg wanted to know. She fished her goat curry out and spooned some rice onto her plate. 

“Met with Gordon Walker for lunch today,” Dean admitted. He forced himself to act casual, dishing out his own food. He couldn’t keep the hardness from his tone. It sounded so incredibly like John’s voice then, a fact that wasn’t lost on Sam. 

“Did you now?” Sam had never been one for pretending. He stood up straight, not even bothering to sit down. “I’m sure that was a fascinating conversation.”

“It was, Sammy. It was.”

“It’s Sam.”

“Seems you left a few things out when you gave the details of your adventures in San Francisco, Sammy,” Dean continued.

“Sam had a lot of adventures in San Francisco that he didn’t share with you,” Meg pointed out in her bright, hard voice. “He wasn’t a monk in those days, Deanie.”

“Thanks for that, Meg,” the surgeon muttered. “What exactly are you talking about?”

“How about Bill Harvelle’s death? Walker told me that he should have been easy to save.” Dean put his fork down and folded his arms across his chest.

“Uh-huh. And where’s Walker’s medical degree from again?” He snorted. “This is unbelievable. Harvelle was shot with explosive rounds, Dean. I did what I could. Look up the charts. Look up the death certificate. There was no accusation of malpractice or incompetence. I wasn’t fired in San Francisco, I resigned to join MSF. Is that what this is about? Because you should have really easy access to those records, which Gordon freaking Walker won’t.”

“Why wouldn’t Gordon Walker have access to those records, Sam?” Cas wanted to know. “He was a police officer there at the time.”

Sam’s mouth quirked up. “Was he?” He shook his head.

“He also said that Dad told him outright that you were involved with the Russians.”

“Of course he did. Did he tell you that Dad blew a .25 blood alcohol content when he was brought in?” He gave another shake of disgust. “I fucking knew this would happen eventually.”

“How about the man he saw entering your hospital room and speaking to you in Russian?” Dean challenged. He gestured. Cas produced a copy of the sketch, although his sighs indicated that he was less than enthusiastic about participating in this confrontation. 

“Speaking Russian isn’t a crime.” He looked at the sketch. “Yeah. That’s our fucking grandfather, Dean. He came into my room once. I told him to go away. I didn’t see him again until Somalia.” 

“You didn’t think this was important to disclose until now why?” Dean roared, standing up.

“Because Samuel has nothing to do with this case. It’s not him who’s after me and Meg.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I put three bullets in his head and watched his body burn.” He walked over to the gun safe, opened it and removed his property. “This is bullshit. I’m not putting up with this anymore. If you had any basis for your accusations I’d already be under arrest.” He put the guns in his bag, zipped it and moved toward the front door. Part of Dean was screaming at him to stop his brother. This was not how a reunion was supposed to go, and how was he supposed to keep Sammy safe if he went storming off into the night? The rest of him bound that part up in the mistrust and anger and held it down while Agent Park moved forward.

“Where do you think you’re going, Dr. Campbell?”

“Somewhere else.”

“Your apartment is not safe, Sam,” Cas pointed out. Dean just folded his arms across his chest.

“I know that. I’ll stay someplace else until this all blows over. I’ll stay in a hotel. I’ll stay in the office. I’ll stay in a cardboard frickin’ box but I am not staying here.” He turned to Meg. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Dr. Campbell, I’m really uncomfortable with this,” Park insisted, reaching out. “I’m going to have to insist that you stay –“

“You gonna arrest me?” Sam’s eyes gleamed with something Dean had only seen once before, the night Sam had left for Stanford. It was the light of reflected fire, as of bridges burning. “We’ve already been over this. You have no legal grounds.”

“We can hold you as a material witness,” Cas offered.

“You’ll still have to put me in a cell,” Sam said, and walked out the door. Even Park wasn’t willing to go so far.

The quartet remaining sat in silence for a full five minutes. Park looked like a man who’d just accidentally put the company’s credit card files up on Facebook. Cas had the look of someone who has just found a snake in his toilet. Meg looked… well, she looked stricken. “I hope you’re happy, asshole,” she said finally. “He’s going to get himself killed now.”

“Sammy will be just fine.” Dean hated the bitterness in his dark chuckle. “He always is. Taking care of himself is what he’s best at, isn’t it?”

“No. It isn’t. You ass.” She got up and left the table.

“I’d better call this one in,” Park sighed heavily. He went into the living room to make the call.

Cas turned to Dean. “Is that the outcome you were going for?”

“No… no, I don’t think so.”

“Then I think perhaps you should have handled that differently.”

“Thanks for that.” He went to the fridge and grabbed them both beers.

“Sammy really will be fine. He knows how to take care of himself. If he even needs to.”

“Do you really believe that your brother is mixed up in all of this? It seems… implausible. After everything he’s been through, to suddenly start working with the criminals –“

“Walker doesn’t seem to think it’s so sudden, does he? He thinks it’s been at least four years, probably longer. Which means he’s been playing Meg too.”

“No.” He put his beer down. “He and Meg are far too close for that. He also exhibits far too many signs of significant trauma –“

“Boo hoo. Cry me a river.” He resisted the urge to throw something, but only barely. “He could be faking it. He could be faking all of it. You just can’t believe any of it, Cas. The guy’s a liar. He’s not trustworthy. Do you know how much lying, how much sneaking around he did as a kid? How much he had to do to get away with going off to Stanford? You know what? Let him get killed. I don’t care. It’s not like he even wanted to be brothers.” Cas shook his head. “You are the one who sprang a bunch of unfounded accusations upon him, Dean. He has been nothing but cooperative with the investigation.”

“Yeah, too cooperative. Seriously, can we even trust his translations? He’s off those, too, effective immediately and I want one of our own people – someone whose actual paycheck says FBI on it – backing up anything he touched before we act on any of it.”

“You’re behaving rashly, Dean. Shouldn’t we at least investigate his claims regarding Walker?”

“What claims?”

“He suggested that Walker was not employed in San Francisco.”

“And you’re just going to take his word for it?”

Cas opened his mouth. He shut it again. Dean was pleased. Cas knew him well enough to know when he was going to listen and when he was not. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said, and left the house.

Dean looked around. There were piles of takeout and no one to eat it, or to help clean it up. Story of his life, really.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean’s anger burned through the night. It didn’t keep him up or anything. No, he didn’t have that kind of anger. That kind of rage was all Sam – well, Sam and John, but John was dead. Dean’s anger just smoldered like a carefully banked fire, and when consciousness returned to him the next morning it stirred back to life with no real prodding whatsoever. He showered and he dressed and he went to the office as he always did. Cas greeted him pleasantly enough if a little coolly, and what was up with that? Oh right – he was all into Meg, who was all attached to his asshole brother.

He wasn’t sure what was pissing him off more. There were the secrets. There was the strong probability that his brother was somehow mixed up in all this Russian organized crime crap. There was the fact that Sam had just walked out, just walked out after it had seemed like they’d made actual progress. And then there was the fact that Sam had walked out the door when there were still people ostensibly trying to kill him. Maybe. Possibly. If he wasn’t in league with them. He’d had the guy in his house. He’d been planning to let the guy near his kid.

It was ten thirty by the time Henricksen called him and Cas into his office. He closed the door and sat there looking at the two of them for a good two minutes before speaking. “Would someone like to fill me in on what happened yesterday, or are you going to let my imagination go wild?”

“We got some information from a local officer that suggested that Sam Campbell might have more information than he was sharing,” Dean explained. He could sound calm now, in front of his boss. He didn’t have that giant form in front of him, filling his vision with memories. “I asked him about it and he became extremely defensive. I’d say suspiciously defensive.”

Henricksen cleared his throat. “Well that would explain the complaint about false accusations and harassment that crossed my desk at nine oh seven this morning. Filed by Morningstar General Hospital Counsel Fergus Crowley on behalf of one Doctor Sam F. Campbell. It requests that pursuant to this complaint one Agent Dean Winchester be removed from the case entirely, that he be banned from setting foot on Morningstar Hospital property and from contacting Sam Campbell in any way, shape or form, to include through any intermediary. After discussion with my own superiors I have elected not to contest any of these requests except for one – Dean, you’re staying on the case, but you’re not the supervisory agent anymore.”

“What?” He shot to his feet. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You can’t run the case if you’re driving our star witness out of our protection, Dean,” his boss told him with a heavy sigh. “Look. I’m not taking you off the case. You’re damn lucky, but I’m not. Part of the blame is on me. When we realized that Campbell was actually your estranged brother I should have taken over, and I should never have had the two of you under one roof. I know you’re a professional, Dean, and I’m not questioning it. Families complicate things. If it were Ben or Lisa you would never have been within a thousand miles of the case. If it were John you’d be on paid leave on general principles. You wanted to show your brother you’d made good and that’s great. You wanted a chance to re-connect and I couldn’t deny that, but now we’re all paying the price. So no more, okay? Oh, by the way, Crowley apparently has a pet judge on speed-dial because a temporary restraining order has already come through. Against you. You’re not to go within five hundred feet of Sam Campbell for any reason whatsoever.”

Dean took five deep breaths. He understood why his father had given Sam such a sendoff. He’d understood then too, although he hadn’t realized how bad the damage had been. It wasn’t like the kid had shared with the class. There wouldn’t be any more sharing now. “I can’t believe that little –“

“Dean, that’s enough,” Cas interrupted. “Just stop.”

“This is the second time the little bastard has walked off with his secrets,” he seethed.

“Maybe that’s because you weren’t listening then either,” his best friend suggested bluntly.

“You’d better think really carefully about the words coming out of your mouth right now, Castiel,” he growled. “I am not in the mood to –“

“I’ve been looking into that hint your brother –“ his voice rose on the last word, like a twisting dagger – “dropped before you chased him off. It turns out that your father wasn’t working in San Francisco. He and Bill Harvelle weren’t on the job when Bill got shot. They weren’t consulting, they hadn’t transferred.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They were on unpaid leave from Omaha. I spoke with another former colleague of your father’s, a man by the name of Singer. They were on unpaid leave after an incident of police brutality. A case involving Russians.” He swallowed. “I made some more phone calls, Dean. Gordon Walker was never employed by the San Francisco police department. He’s been here in San Diego for four years, but before that he worked in Chicago. So he wasn’t ‘working with’ your father in San Francisco. And he couldn’t have had anything to do with arresting or not arresting your father.”

“You’re saying he made all that up. Cas, Sam even confirmed that our grandfather freaking visited him in the hospital!”

“What we need to do is to figure out why Gordon was there in the first place,” Henricksen mused. “And why John and Bill were there. I do think that it all boils down to Sam. Unfortunately there is no way in Hell we’re getting near him right now without a whole team of lawyers present, and none of those lawyers are going to let him say a word.” He shook his head. “This is a really difficult situation. It’s made even more difficult by the fact that we’ve also just lost our only available translator.”

“You can’t trust his translations,” Dean objected. “They’re all suspect. He’s working his own agenda.”

“Did you not hear a single goddamn word Cas just said?” his boss exploded. “Do I need to send you home to get your shit together? Do you want completely off this case? Damnit, Dean, I know you are more of a professional than this. How is it even possible that a guy that you haven’t even tried to see in twelve years can turn you into a twelve-year-old in a matter of two weeks? Go back to your desk. See what you can dig up about Walker’s Chicago connection. Discreetly. Do not discuss the matter with Walker and for God’s sake don’t tell the man you’re brothers. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal, sir.” He got up and went back to his desk, leaving his partner and his boss together. If he took the time to think about this rationally, he knew Henricksen was right. He’d lost it with Sam. He didn’t trust him, never really had. Even before the kid had snuck off to Palo Alto he’d noticed the secrecy, the evasion. Obviously the kid had planned to ditch long before he actually had. And that was the crux of the problem. Sam had never been on board with the whole family business thing. He’d hated helping Dad track down their mother’s killer. He’d hated having to train constantly in expectation of combat. He’d questioned everything, and Dean hadn’t. Now he was being asked to do exactly that. To question another cop, to question Dad and Dad’s pursuit of the mission. 

He started digging. He had contacts in Chicago – a lovely young man in the police records department who remembered a two-week training program fondly, for one. Frank was not immune to the Winchester charm even at such a distance and shared the password Dean needed. After an hour, Dean sent a text to Cassie cancelling their date that night. He knew he was in for the long haul. She texted back with a frowning emoticon and asked about his brother. He just told her he’d call when he could come up for air. At four o’clock Cas roused him to let him know that Meg was going to be moving out that night. “What the hell, man?” he asked. “Is she that stupid?”

“I’ll explain later, or maybe she will. But you owe me.” He scowled. “You need to be there to let her in.” 

“Son of a bitch.” He downloaded as many files as he could to his laptop and followed Cas out. Meg was not alone when she arrived at his house. Agent Posner was expected, being the agent on duty or at least the agent assigned to her. (Henricksen made a point of not telling him who was assigned to Sam, since apparently he was on double secret probation or something.) Her boss, Dr. Pellegrino, and the lawyer Crowley were with her as well and neither of them had even remotely been invited. “What the actual hell, Meg?” he asked her when they showed up behind her. 

Both devils smiled nastily at him. “Oh, Dean, you wound me,” Pellegrino accused. “You don’t think we’d leave dear sweet little Meg alone with you, do you?”

“We’re here to help Meg evacuate to a new location,” Crowley elucidated. How was it possible to make such a matter of fact statement sound so damn smug? Was it just the accent or was it something else, something darker?

“Meg, you don’t need to leave,” he told her. “You’re safer here –“

“The hell I am. I saw how you turned on Sam,” she spat. “He was just starting to trust you. Hell, I was almost starting to trust you. You and your whole agency can go right to Hell, Dean. You can go right to Hell and burn.” She moved toward the stairs.

He reached out and grabbed her arm. “That’s assault,” Crowley observed with a gleeful chuckle.

“Screw you, Crowley. Meg, look, you need to listen to reason here.”

“You have no right to lecture me on ‘reason.’ You made him believe something and then you pulled the rug out from under him. You make all sorts of nice noises about loyalty and love but you don’t know the first thing about either word. I hope someday you know just what kind of despair he feels.” Before he even knew she was moving she’d freed herself from his grip, his shin was bruised and his head had collided with the coffee table.

“Self-defense,” Crowley identified in a bored tone.

Pellegrino and Posner went upstairs to grab Meg’s bags. Cas checked on Dean before joining them. Dean looked at Crowley, who looked back at him. “Aren’t you going to help?” he asked. 

“Not my job, mate. I’m here to watch you. To make sure that you don’t try to take advantage of the situation in any way.”

“How the hell would I try to take advantage of Meg moving out?” Lawyers, man. He could never quite figure them out. 

“You mean besides your little attempt at assault? Well, let’s see. You could perhaps try to intimidate Dr. Masters into carrying a message for you, or possibly intimidate her into staying. You could try to plant evidence on her that would implicate her in the absurdist conspiracy that you seem to believe your brother to be a party to. You could attempt to plant a listening device on her. Your boss and your partner,” he continued, stepping in closer, “believe that you are simply too close to this case. That this was unavoidable due to the… coincidental and unfortunate reunion between yourself and Dr. Campbell. You and I both know better, don’t we, Agent? We both know that you’re a time bomb, an apple still clinging to a rotten branch.”

“What are you talking about, Crowley?” He frowned and stepped back. The guy had been eating kimchi for lunch. “What the hell gives you the right to call our reunion ‘unfortunate’ in the first place? What do you know about it?”

“I know the effect it’s having on Dr. Campbell. I know the effect it’s going to continue to have if it has him in my office at half past seven in the morning. I may just file suit against you personally, Winchester, if we wind up losing him.” The extraction team came back down the stairs. Dean did not sag with relief although it was a temptation. “Shall we be off then?”

It was better this way. Dean didn’t even like Meg. Sure it was nice having a house full of people. A house full of his brother, his family. In his unguarded moments it had been easy to think of Meg as part of that whole scene too, because she obviously adored Sam and took care of him and it gave such a “family” vibe that even Ben had noticed. He hadn’t really noticed consciously while it had been there though and really, it had been kind of distracting. He’d get more done without them. In the silence, with nothing but his own footfalls and keystrokes to echo off the walls.

Good thing he had a case to work on, and plenty of uneaten curry.

The Gordon Walker story actually proved to be fascinating reading. The guy had been a pretty dedicated beat cop until he became a detective, working for the organized crime unit. At first most of his cases had been pretty run of the mill. Then a pattern began to emerge. He started to work more and more cases involving the Russian syndicates. Dean didn’t directly recognize any of the groups Walker had been involved with busting, although he supposed some of the artwork looked familiar. A tiny part of him began to nag. Walker had insisted that he didn’t speak any Russian. How was it that he specialized in busting the Russian mob without speaking any Russian? He looked at the clock. Two in the morning – too late to call Cas or Henricksen. He decided to sleep on it and call them in the morning. What he had in mind was illegal – not that looking at Walker’s employment records without a warrant was much better – and required skills that weren’t his strongest anyway. He collapsed onto a couch that still smelled like Sam and let oblivion take him. 

His phone woke him the next morning, far earlier than he’d have preferred. He checked the number. “Cassie!” he greeted. “Hey!”

“Dean! Hey. I’m on my way to an apartment building fire – it’s huge. I did a quick check and Dr. S. F. Campbell is listed as one of the residents.”

Well, that woke him up better than a bucket of ice water. “What?”

His girlfriend repeated herself. “That’s your brother, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Cassie. Just… don’t go telling anyone that, okay? It’s important for now.” He raced up the stairs to find a suit that he hadn’t slept in. “For his safety.”

“Oh. Okay, no problem. I mean, the other agents know, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, everyone at the branch office knows.” He sighed. “What’s the address?”

She rattled off an address in La Jolla. “Witnesses reported a massive explosion just before the fire,” she reported. “I hope he’s… I mean, he was staying with you, right?” 

“Uh, well, we had a bit of a falling out. He took off, but I think he was staying somewhere else. He was too smart to go back there. I think. Look, thanks for calling me, sweetie. I’ll see you on-site, but I’ve gotta make some calls. I need to make sure Sammy’s safe, okay?” His palms broke out in sweat. Sammy was too smart to go back to his apartment. Of course he was. He’d scored a full ride to Stanford, finished early, boy genius.

“I get it. Talk to you later honey.”

He hung up and dialed Henricksen and Cas at the same time. Why repeat himself? “Having an agent dating a reporter certainly comes in handy,” Henricksen groaned, clearly still more than half asleep. “I’ll meet you there. Do not contact Sam, Dean.”

“No, no, I know. Just… he wasn’t there, was he?” “No. He promised that he wasn’t going to go back until the problem was solved and I believed him.”

“You don’t have an officer escorting him?”

“He refused.” How was Cas this awake? “I will inform him of this development and meet you there.”

“Is he staying there with you, Cas?” “

You’re joking, right? I think the last person he’d choose to stay with would be me. I’ll see you soon, Dean.”

Dean had never gotten dressed faster in his life, and that included the time Penny Daran’s father came home in media res in the tenth grade. He made it to the crime scene in record time – he hadn’t thought the Impala could make those speeds on city streets but apparently physics had no meaning when baby brothers were involved. It had been his father’s first and strongest command to him: “Take care of Sammy.”

The building in front of him had once been six stories of condos overlooking the ocean. There wasn’t much left. Whoever had set it off had done a fine job of it. The street was cordoned off for half a block and evacuated for some space beyond; the stench of mixed chemicals and burned flesh was strong, not yet bathed away by salt air, and a hazmat crew was in a tense standoff with the bomb squad. He found Henricksen, who had managed to arrive before him. Right – the guy actually lived in La Jolla. The local supervisory officer was none other than Gordon Walker – what a coincidence. Dean frowned. He still believed the guy, of course. He was a cop – a decorated officer, with a strong organized crime background. Still, he found it interesting that he was here now. “Hey, Winchester,” the Chicagoan greeted with the smile that never quite reached his eyes. “Beautiful day for a bombing, isn’t it?”

“I guess that depends on your point of view,” he shrugged. “What’ve we got?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure this is going to be your thing and not so much ours. I mean, a truck bomb is usually terrorism right?” He pointed at the remains of a box truck stuck in the front entrance.

“I’ve already called up to San Fran for the anti-terrorism unit,” Henricksen informed him. “They’ll be able to find a lot more about the device used and whatnot. DMORTs are en route as we speak.”

“I guess there are a lot of fatalities.” Dean grimaced, looking at the crater.

“I’d guess so. It’ll take a while to process the minimum number of individuals. Firemen haven’t found any signs of life yet but no one is giving up hope.”

Dean’s phone rang. “Meg,” he greeted, stepping away.

“Tell me he wasn’t there,” she hissed. “You just tell me he wasn’t there.”

“That was quick.”

“I haven’t slept – none of your business. Just tell me he wasn’t there.” 

“He promised Cas he wouldn’t go back.” She hung up. He stared at the phone for a moment before shaking his head and putting it back in his pocket. 

Walker raised an eyebrow. “Girl troubles?” he asked, still with that smile.

“Yeah. Not mine. Campbell’s.” He shook his head.

“What, Campbell’s got a girl now? I thought he kept pretty much to himself.” Walker actually sounded a little perkier at the information. “Do tell. I’d love to know what gets that guy going, you know?”

Henricken’s eyebrows drew together in disgust. “The hell’s wrong with you, man?” he asked. “We’re at a crime scene. That’s a flaming arm right behind you.” He walked away, shaking his head. Dean scurried to keep up as Walker went to speak with the firemen. “Walker didn’t know about Meg and Sam,” he hissed between clenched teeth.

“Shit,” Dean spat. “I mean, there is no Meg and Sam. Not really, not like that.”

“Well that’s not what you just told him. And if he’s not one of the good guys, or if he’s running his mouth where he’s not supposed to be, then she’s in even more danger than she was before.”

“Walker’s not the threat,” Dean scoffed, but quietly. He wasn’t so sure about that. “She’s got an agent with her, unlike my idiot brother. She should be fine.” Cas approached. “Thank God! Cas, it’s about time.”

His partner passed his cell phone to Dean. “I texted Sam,” he informed. “I informed him of this development. This was his response.” “Sounds ugly. I’ll be at the office if there are any survivors.” 

Dean looked at the time stamp. The message had been sent ten minutes ago. “All right. Excellent.” He called Meg back. “I just got independent confirmation that he’s alive. He texted Cas and said he’ll be in the office in case there are survivors.” 

“Thank you.” She sounded almost in tears, if someone like Meg were capable of tears.

The anti-terrorism unit took a few hours to get to the site, so until then Dean, Cas and Henricksen were stuck directing traffic and trying to keep the crime scene from getting contaminated. It was entirely possible, of course, that this was not in any way shape or form related to their case. None of them believed it of course. It was entirely too coincidental, and no one was aware of any other targets of any value near this particular building. No survivors were found in the wreckage of the building itself, but six firefighters had to be rushed to hospitals when a careless water jet tripped a second explosion. How had the bomb squad missed that? At least Sam would be able to say he was useful.

By three o’clock the specialists made it to the scene, freeing up Dean and his buddies to get back to hunting the real culprits. Dean tried not to think about it that way, but the odds of there being any other explanation at all were just too low. He wasn’t sure who the real culprit was, of course. It could be the Russians. It could be Gordon Walker, although that was unlikely. It could be Sam himself. He didn’t want to think that way about his brother, but the guy wasn’t exactly trustworthy and he had admitted to murdering their grandfather and burning the body.

He went to find the media area. Fortunately Cassie was in between shots right now, so he was able to take his leave. She gave him a thin smile – he was in the doghouse again. He supposed he deserved it, with all the missed dates. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’ve got to get to work on this…”

“I know, I know. And I’ll keep quiet about your… you know.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and whispered in his ear. “I thought you told me that the other agents knew Sam was your brother,” she accused.

“They do,” he frowned.

“Agent Walker had no idea, honey,” she pointed out. “Honestly, he seemed shocked.”

Dean’s mouth went dry. “He told you he was an agent?” His hands went to her hips and he took a step back. 

She blinked up at him. “Yeah, why. I saw him talking to you all, you seemed to know him.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we do. It’s okay, Cassie. It’s just… don’t… uh… don’t tell him… um… don’t tell him anything else, okay? And, ah, stay in front of the cameras. Or in a crowd. All of the time. Take five or six people you know even to go to the ladies’ room, okay?” 

She frowned. “Dean, you’re scaring me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Just do it, okay.” He jogged back over to Henricksen. “We’ve got a problem.


	8. Chapter 8

Of course they couldn’t make a move against Walker. Not without proof, and more proof than a television anchor claiming that he’d told her he was an FBI agent in the middle of a fraught situation. And so they had to wait. Fortunately Cassie was smarter than his kid brother – or had better self-preservation instincts – or felt that there was more to preserve – because she was willing to stay with Dean and accept the presence of an agent. It wasn’t as though it was special treatment or they had to pull another agent off the investigation to protect her; she just got the agent Sam wouldn’t accept.

As soon as they could extricate themselves from the crime scene the agents went back to Dean’s house. Even though it no longer contained any of the witnesses they’d all gotten used to thinking of it as a sub-headquarters. Henricksen was distressed to learn that Walker now knew of Sam and Dean’s relationship but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Cas made the doctor aware of the situation via the intermediary of Meg only to be met with apathy. “Freaking child,” Dean groused. “It’s like playing telephone, with an army of freaking lawyers making sure that we play right.” 

“Whose fault is that?” Henricksen wanted to know.

“All right, I’m looking at Walker’s credit history,” Cas interrupted. “It’s not really obvious, but it does look like he’s made a number of large land purchases in other cities that shouldn’t be possible with his salary. There isn’t any indication that he comes from money or that he has a legitimate alternative source of income, so I think it’s reasonable to assume that he’s being paid by someone.”

That pretty much let Sam right off the hook, didn’t it? Guilt gnawed at his intestines. Sam was out there somewhere, in the wind, because he’d believed a dirty cop over his own brother. Of course, Sam had no one to blame for that but himself, right? He’d never given Dean a reason to trust him. Then again, neither had Gordon Walker. How hard would it have been to look up what had actually happened when his dad had died? Hell, this whole reunion would have been so much easier, so much sooner if they’d managed to pull it off before whatever happened in Somalia had happened. Before he came back “different,” as Meg put it. It wasn’t as though the new name were subtle. All he’d have had to do would have been to look at his father’s death certificate. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Henrickesn’s lips twitched. 

“Okay. I was wrong. I fucked up. I broke it. I probably can’t fix us but I’m hoping I can fix the case. Let’s do this.” He tried to rub his own neck and failed. “Do we still have any of the translations Sam actually did?”

“Right here,” his boss told him. “I’ll go through this stuff, see what I can’t figure out. You see what you can do about digging up a location on some preferred haunts from some of our other intel. Cas, you see if you can get any more on Walker. We’re going to burn the midnight oil on this. I’m going to stay in touch with Crowley and see if we can get him to communicate with Sam and Meg, try to get some more cooperation with them.”

As it turned out Crowley was either not successful or not cooperative himself, Dean wasn’t sure which it was. And Henricksen wasn’t kidding about burning the midnight oil, either. Thanks to the fact that they were pretty sure that Dean was now on the Russians’ radar they agreed that they would sleep in shifts, so that someone would be awake and alert at all times. He wondered if he were going to be getting a duty agent of his own or if they could just blow the whole mess sky-high by then.

Maybe that was a bad analogy. His suit still smelled like overdone barbeque and accelerant. 

By Sunday the terrorism folks had come back with some information, although none of it was entirely unexpected. The bomb wasn’t significantly different from what had been used in Oklahoma City. The components had almost certainly been purchased locally, and if the perpetrators had used anything other than cash to prepare their bomb then they were probably too stupid to successfully build a bomb. Not impossible to trace of course, but not instantaneous. The truck was a cinder, but eventually a partial VIN was pulled. It was a place to start. Henricksen had warned the head of the terror unit that they had become suspicious of certain elements within local law enforcement and that all information needed to be held very close.

The media was another issue. San Diego hadn’t ever had a big terrorism issue, but given the huge military presence here no one was very surprised. What people were was afraid, and fear sold advertising space. It was almost impossible to turn on the television without seeing coverage. Of course, there wasn’t any new information to give, so instead of hard facts meant to reassure people they started running “human interest” stories. This led to more than one disagreement between Cassie and Dean and ultimately by Monday they were sleeping in separate bedrooms. Cassie – the reporter, the news anchor – defended the barrage. “People want to see it,” she insisted. “They want a human face to go with the tragedy. It helps them to process what’s happened, to understand the enormity.”

“No it doesn’t,” Dean insisted. “It softens the issue. You’re showing them fluffy pictures of kittens and little old ladies, not what actually happened to them. You won’t actually show that on television, you can’t. And you won’t actually talk about it when we do get to the bottom of this. You won’t say, ‘This was an act of violence. This was murder.’ You’ll refer to it by the date, or as ‘The Tragedy of Blah Blah Blah.’ You’ll never remind people that someone chose to end a hundred lives while people slept in their beds. And you’ll devote a lot more coverage to how it was the construction company’s fault for not building a bomb-proof building or how it was the Feds’ fault for not stopping it or how it was Sammy’s fault for bringing the danger down on his neighbors, and absolutely none on how it was the guy who decided to load a bunch of fertilizer into a truck, drive it into an apartment building and detonate it.” He wasn’t afraid of her using his words for a story; they’d promised each other long ago that she wouldn’t do that without permission as long as he was honest with her.

“It’s a business, Dean. People want coverage and it’s not like you’re giving us anything to go on. I know – you can’t, it’s just speculation at this point and you can’t jeopardize the case. I get it, I do and that’s why I’m keeping quiet. But you know that people want to feel like they’re informed. We’re giving them that product – the feeling that they’re informed.”

“It’s like filling someone up on potato chips and telling them that they’re full!” he exploded. “They’re not really informed. They’re getting gibberish and flab!”

“They’re getting opinions! They’re getting information about their fellow man! They’re getting catharsis! And when the real information comes through they’re listening!” 

“No, they aren’t. They’ve tuned out by that point, because they’ve realized that there isn’t anything new and you’ve shown them the same picture of the same funeral fifty times. They’re on to Sports now.”

Monday morning dawned with no new developments. Reinforcements arrived from Quantico to help with protection details and with the investigation, although Sam continued to react with hostility to any contact from the FBI. Meg had some idea where he was staying but she wasn’t sharing, and while Cas wasn’t saying much Dean figured out that his friend’s chances with the surgeon were pretty much gone. Gordon Walker made no attempt to contact the team, neither on Monday nor on Tuesday.

On Wednesday Walker actually showed up at Dean’s house. It was about the fifth inning of the Padres game, which Dean had on mostly for background noise. Cassie was still angry with him; she was reading upstairs in her room (formerly Meg’s room.) The two duty agents – Portman for Dean, Jones for Cassie - answered the door but all Walker had in his hand was a sealed envelope. He moved slowly, seeing the guns aimed at him. “Hiya, Dean,” he greeted. “I see things are tense lately. Where’s your brother?”

“No idea, Walker,” he replied. “That’s the truth. He and I haven’t been close in years.”

“That’s a shame. Families should stick together, shouldn’t they? You know, your daddy never even mentioned having another son. Just the one. It was like Sammy was already dead to him.” He shook his head. “So sad. And now he’s dead to you too, huh?”

“More or less. Look, it’s good to see you, Walker, but you can see things aren’t so good right now. My girlfriend she’s, uh, indisposed.” He kept his eyes on the turncoat. Was he a turncoat? Had he ever been honestly on the side of good? “What can I do for you?”

“Someone came by the office today, asked me to give you this. We already x-rayed it, it doesn’t seem to be contaminated or trapped in any way.” He held out the envelope.

Portman put on a plastic glove and accepted the missive. Walker didn’t look offended. It was a standard procedure, after all. “Did you get a look at the man who dropped it off?” he asked.

“No,” he replied easily. “I was out. But the receptionist said it was a woman, for what it’s worth. Redheaded. I’ll let you get back to taking care of your girl.” He turned around and walked back into the night.

And of course now they were off to the races. Dean and Portman took off for the office, calling Henricksen and Cas on the way. Jones stayed with Cassie. Fortunately there was someone available at the lab to do the necessary work on the envelope – scanning, fingerprinting, et cetera. Once everything came back clean they had to document the whole process, so that no one could accuse Dean of any of the things of which he’d accused Sam.

The envelope contained a letter, printed out on standard paper. “’Dear Mr. Winchester,’” he read aloud. “’It is a shame and a pity that we have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance until now. We previously entered into a business transaction with your mother. She proved to be an unsatisfactory business partner. We would like to give you the opportunity to prove that you were raised better than she was. Expect to hear from us in the next three days.’” He put the paper down very gently on the desk, walked over to the wall and punched it hard enough to crack the plaster. Then he walked back over to his colleagues. Had Sam received a similar note? How young had he been? Had it been while he was still at Stanford?

“They’ll find it more difficult to abduct a federal agent than a college student,” Cas suggested.

“They’re trying to rile you up,” Henricksen warned him. “They want you to make mistakes. Come on. Let’s get back to work, get you your life back.” How many times had he said that to other victims?

Dean didn’t go home that night. He stayed at his desk, pouring over leads. He left only for the throughput of coffee. It was at noon the next day when Henricksen rushed over to his desk, grabbed his arm and brought him to his feet. “Come on, Dean. We’re going to Morningstar.”

He blinked. Was he dreaming? He followed along on the basis that if he was dreaming there would be no ill consequences. He carried his coffee on the basis that if he were not dreaming it would be a bad idea to start dreaming halfway there. “Uh, won’t I go to jail for contempt....”

“No, that’s only a request based on the harassment complaint and I don’t think they’ll be doing any bitching. It was Crowley who called and said you should come. Dean, it’s Sam. He’s taken off.” 

They’d made it to the elevator by now, and that was good because Dean’s yelp could attract no undue attention in here. “What?” 

“He’s taken off. They’ll explain it there, it didn’t make much sense. I’m not sure how or what all is going on but we’re going there. Come on and try to hold it together.” They got into Henricksen’s car – there was no way he was going to let Dean drive – and used sirens to get to Morningstar in record time.

Pellegrino and Crowley were in Meg’s office with Cas. Crowley stood in a corner, watching everything and everyone. His lip curled into a sneer of utmost disgust when he saw Dean. Pellegrino stood behind Meg, hands on her shoulders. His face was drawn and gray. Meg’s was white and her eyes red. “You did this,” she spat at Dean.

He held his hands up. “Look, sister, I’ve been good. I haven’t spoken to him in a week. I’ve abided by the restraining order; I’ve obeyed the new rules based on his goddamn complaint.”

“What Meg is saying,” Pellegrino informed him, looking up with icy blue eyes that bored right into him, “is that she believes he felt compelled to such drastic action because of your behavior.”

“Dr. Pellegrino, Agent Winchester doesn’t understand what the drastic action was,” Henricksen soothed, standing between Dean and the physicians. Dean looked at Cas, who looked at him and shook his head. He had nothing to offer.

“At eleven forty-five, Sam came into my office. He had his two bags with him, and his laptop. He put them down in a corner and then he came over to me. He said he was sorry he’d screwed up my life so much, put me in danger, but he was going to fix it.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and exhaled, staring dully at the space over Castiel’s left shoulder. “He said… he said he was sorry that he wasn’t ever able to give me what I seemed to want. That he’d been afraid that I would get hurt, that he’d always… always loved me. Then he kissed me like I’ve never been kissed in my life and walked out the door.”

“Hospital security cameras picked him up moments later getting into the back of a car with tinted windows,” Pellegrino confirmed. 

“I called you as soon as Sam left,” Cas informed. “By the time I understood what he’d done he was already in the car. It was too late.”

“What do you mean, what he’d done?” Dean’s own voice came from far away. “What’s going on here, Cas?”

Meg gestured toward the bags. “They’re everything he owns. He didn’t keep much in that apartment anyway. His books in his office and this.”

Dean moved in slow motion and unzipped one of the bags. There were some clothes – to be expected for a man moving from place to place. A couple of books – not a surprise for Sam, again. His guns. All of them. Six knives in the other bag, to include the little bone-handled one he’d given the kid when he turned seven. A tee shirt from Lawrence Community College, where Dean had gone to school. The shirt would have been about eight sizes too small for Sam now; no one had known just what a moose the guy would be. The keys for Sam’s motorcycle. “Sammy,” he whispered.

“He’s going in there completely unarmed,” Henricksen realized, appalled. He shook his head. “Cas, did you get the tags on that car?” 

“The security cameras did.” He picked up his phone and called the office. 

“All right. Crowley, you start with A – H. I’ll take I – R. Meg, you’ve got Q – Z. Let’s get on this.” Pellegrino moved toward his office as Meg nodded, pulled herself together and began opening files on her computer. 

“What’s going on?” Dean wanted to know.

“Do you have any idea how many people your brother has saved, Dean? And how many of them he saved for free? Not all of them would talk to you. They’ll talk to us.” She gave him a wan little smile and started dialing. “Hi, is this Bob Smith?” Because that wasn’t an alias. “I’m Dr. Meg Masters from Morningstar General, I work with Dr. Sam Campbell. Yeah, the one who diagnosed your daughter’s brain tumor. Right, nice guy. Nicest in the world, really. Listen, he’s gotten into a bit of a jam. It seems he’s been kidnapped. Russian mob. No no no – we’re pretty sure he’s still in San Diego right now, it just happened a few minutes ago. Black Lincoln town car, California plates.” She read the plates off. “The FBI is on the case too, but –“ she gave a laugh. “Yeah, I know. That’s why we called you. Thanks, Mr. Smith.”

Dean got up and started pacing. Henricksen followed. “Dean, you’ve got to go home. You’re too close to this, man,” he counseled, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Go home and go to bed.”

“I can’t do that, man. I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. Not without knowing. I’d do something stupid like go after Walker. What the hell was he thinking?” He walked out of the office and into the hallway so as not to interfere with the phone tree. Casey, the receptionist, was crying softly. “The last time we spoke we fought. I basically accused him of being in bed with these… animals. On the word of a dirty cop. He thinks I don’t… that I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t, Dean.” Cas had emerged from Meg’s office. “Nor does he trust you. You and your father cast him out. Your father tried to kill him. I do believe… I’ve had an opportunity to speak with him a few times over the past couple of weeks, Dean. I do believe that you were building up to something. Slowly. You were speaking, at least. You could be in the same room together and speak about neutral subjects. I think he cared very much for you, or else he would not have carried that shirt with him for so long.” He sighed. “The question is, how do you feel about him, Dean?” 

“What do you mean how do I feel about him? He’s my brother. I raised him.”

“And you cast him out. Twice.”

“He took off, both times.” 

“I don’t think he felt he had a choice either time, Dean. Now these people here, they care for him. If we can find him alive they will do everything they can to help him recover and heal and you will never have to see him again.” His partner turned him to look into his eyes. “Or you – and I – can try to be part of the process. Part of the solution. But you have to let go of your resentment for Sam choosing medicine over police work. Your mission to find your mother’s killer is over. You arrested the killer.”

The circuit closed in Dean’s brain. “But the one who gave the order is still out there,” he pointed out. He raced into the office that had been given to the FBI for the duration and gestured to Meg’s duty agent – Spielman, he thought – to open her laptop. She obeyed and Dean logged in, bringing up a copy of the message Walker had given him. “See? They referenced my mother. The people who have Sam now are the people who killed my mother. If we can stop them now, we can put the whole thing to rest.”

Silence reigned for a moment. It wasn’t a complete silence. The sound of Meg’s voice, of Nick’s penetrated from a distance. Casey’s phone rang. Inside the small room, though, no one spoke until Henricksen pulled his phone from his pocket. “Call Gordon Walker. Arrange a meeting. Tell him we want to talk about Bill Harvelle’s murder, we’re re-opening the investigation.”


	9. Chapter 9

Dean would never have believed it but leads started pouring in from the Morningstar team within ten minutes. Apparently between Sam’s volunteer work with the migrant workers, his pro bono work at the hospital and some work he’d apparently done with the local prison population (seriously, Sammy? Convicts?) they had quite the network of people who were willing to give information about his possible whereabouts. The car had been changed somewhere for a big old Escalade, still with tinted windows, and driven south. The thing had been stopped at an abandoned apartment building and what looked like six men had gotten out, to include Sam. The can man who had given the information – how was the guy even reachable? – had not seen Sam restrained or under apparent duress in any way.

While the hospital network raced the federal network also sped into action. Ordinarily an action like what they had in mind required the cooperation of local authorities. In this case, though, they were reasonably certain that at least one of the local authorities was corrupt and they had no idea how far that went. There had already been an act of terror on US soil related to the case and that complicated matters further. Fortunately it also made things easier, at least in the short term. Instead of having to take hours and days to go through proper channels to go around the local authorities Henricksen was able to set things into motion and start to act.

If Dean had been expected to wait quietly at home it would have been agonizing. Fortunately he was not expected to sit at home, staring at the blank spot on the wall where he’d removed his father’s portrait. Instead he borrowed Cas’ car and drove down to the San Diego precinct. Keeping it calm, friendly and neutral was a challenge but he was up to it. He lied professionally, after all. It was a gift. The guy on the desk called Gordon up to the front and Walker came quickly. Good, then. This bastard wasn’t one of the guys currently working on Sammy, whatever it was that they were doing to him. “Hey, Gordon. I wanted to talk to you about Bill Harvelle. You got a few minutes, want to go grab a cup of coffee or something?” He gave his most winning, get-the-girl smile.

“Yeah, sure. I think there’s a coffee shop on the corner there.” He signed out and left with Dean. The place turned out to be more of a doughnut shop than anything else but hey – sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason. “What was it you wanted to talk about, Dean?”

“Hang on, Cas is caught up in working on that bombing in La Jolla. You mind if I record this? I’m a little frazzled and I want to make sure I don’t forget anything.” He massaged his face. He didn’t need to exaggerate his fatigue as he pulled out his digital recorder.

“Go ahead, man. I know what that’s like.” He took a bite of his doughnut. “That place in La Jolla was your brother’s, wasn’t it?”

That little tidbit hadn’t been released. The anti-terror folks had snapped up every last piece of that investigation and hadn’t released even the slightest hint to anyone, not about anything. “Yeah, I guess. He had a place there but he was pretty much moved out of there by then. Small blessings, right?”

“I guess. If he wasn’t involved. I mean, I’ve been looking into the guy, Dean. He’s a killer. How do you know he’s not the one who splashed accelerant over the hallways in that place?” He leaned forward. “You know about Somalia, right? Guy goes there, ostensibly under a charity mission cover. There’s an incident, foreign mercenaries kidnap the MSF unit he’s with. Only he and a nurse survive. And by ‘only’ I mean none of the mercenaries. The nurse said he was like a man possessed.”

“Oh really? I mean, I heard some of this, but not all of it. How did you talk to the nurse?”

“Anyone can be persuaded when they need to be, Dean. It’s not hard.” He smiled. “Oh, come on. Like you’ve never leaned on a witness. Anyway, she told me that your baby brother didn’t leave a living soul behind him. A man like that is capable of anything.”

Dean considered that. He remembered the scars on his brother’s body – not the “artistic” ones, the ones that were intended to mark him as property or some such crap, but the ones that were markers of a different sort of art. “Could be,” he said. “Could be. I don’t suppose you’ve got any hard evidence for that.” 

“Nah, man. It’s Somalia anyway. I don’t think they’re in a position to push for charges.” 

“You never know. If charges in this whole Harvelle thing don’t work out it’d be good to have him off the streets.” He tried not to be too stiff in his shrug. “Can you go into some more detail about your concerns about the Bill Harvelle case? I want to make sure we nail him. I’d rather not involve State if we don’t have to.”

“So you really are re-opening the Harvelle case, huh? I’m surprised they’ve got you working on it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure I’ll be pulled as soon as things settle down with the whole bombing thing but whatever. It’s not like we’re close or anything. Kid changed his name to get rid of me, right?” He didn’t have to fake the bitterness there. Gordon launched into his story about the night Bill Harvelle died. Dean nodded where he needed to, asked the right questions where the story needed to be drawn out. He’d heard the story before and he really didn’t care how it ended. He knew now that it was false. He knew his dad was drunk when he’d accused Sam of complicity, when he’d stabbed Sam. “So, Gordon, what brought them to San Francisco?” he asked when the story came to an end. He checked his phone. No news, no updates.

“They were pursuing a lead, obviously. A lead relating to a case they were working back in Lawrence.” Walker blinked. “Why?”

“Just curious. San Francisco was kind of far for his jurisdiction, but hey – there was no line too far to cross for my dad.” He grinned and Gordon relaxed a little.

“John was a smart guy.” He leaned back a little. “He was so dedicated. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get his man. Nothing at all. You’re the one who finally nabbed the triggerman, though, right? The one who shot his wife, your mother?” 

“Yeah. I think it was right after the funeral,” he recalled. “Got the conviction, too. It’s survived one appeal already.”

Walker shook his head. “That’s what the guy gets for walking into the guy’s funeral. I mean, really. What was he thinking?” 

“I know, right?” They shared a chuckle. “We never get to meet the smart criminals.”

“I’d bet you meet a smarter class of criminal than I do, a lot of the time.”

“Nah. They all do something stupid eventually.” Like admit to spilling accelerant all over the hallways of a building they blew up, Dean added silently. His phone finally buzzed. It was Henricksen with an address in Chula Vista. “Bring Walker,” he added. “Don’t spook him.” He glanced at his companion. “Hey, Gordon,” he said. “Something big’s going down, we need a local representative ASAP. You want in?”

“Hells yeah I want in.” When he smiled like that he looked like a snake. “Let’s roll, man.”

The pair got into Cas’ company car, turned on the sirens and sped off toward the address Dean had gotten. “So what is it?” Walker wanted to know. “What’s going on.”

“Hostage situation.” Dean glanced at his companion. The guy was still armed. “You ever think about going Fed, Gordon?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “It seems like a good gig, you know? The cases look more interesting.”

“Sometimes they are. And you know, no uniforms or nothing.” He chuckled. He was armed too, and he really wanted to subdue this guy. He could say he tried to fight. No, that would be wrong. He could prove he was capable of putting his emotions aside. He turned off the sirens about three blocks from the site when he noticed that there were no other lights or sirens on and circled for about five minutes. He had the right place – he saw plenty of other unmarked vehicles and a couple of ambulances, ready and waiting.

Gordon tensed up. “What’s going on here, Dean?” he asked, hand on his gun.

“I told you, hostage situation.” Dean pulled into the parking lot beside Henricksen.

“I’m a little uncomfortable with this, Dean. I’m feeling like you don’t trust me.”

“Now why would I not trust you, Gordon? There’s no reason for me not to trust you, is there? We’re all just buddies here, right? Just cops together?” He gave a bright smile and opened his car door, eyes on his passenger. They both rose and exited, staring at each other the whole time. “Neither of us has any reason to distrust the other.”

Henricksen and Cas approached. “Hi, Gordon. Glad you could make it. We’ve got the SRT here just about to go in and hopefully retrieve the hostage alive. We sent in a robot and there is motion so there is reason for hope –“ 

“Motion?” Dean repeated, and Cas grabbed his arm and led him away. “What do you mean ‘motion?’ ‘Reason for hope?’ What the hell is going on?”

“It appears as though your brother entered under his own power, but he is being restrained and harmed –“ Cas tackled him to the ground. “Dean, control yourself. We have the place surrounded. We’re going in now. We just needed this last piece in place.” He hauled Dean to his feet and indicated Henricksen, who had Walker in cuffs up against one of the cars. 

It was the signal that the situation response team had been waiting for. Agents in body armor surged in from every possible entrance. It was only seconds before gunfire erupted, followed by shouting. Dean accepted a vest as Cas reached into their boss’ trunk and began pulling them out. He grabbed a shotgun and began making his way toward the main entrance. As soon as he heard someone say “clear” he ran in. 

“Clear!’

“Clear!” 

“Clear!” 

The cries rang out through the abandoned building. Not everyplace was clear though. The place had been built as a square surrounding a central courtyard, and in the central courtyard was a large empty pool. The pool was the locus of the gunfire now. FBI agents hurried to eliminate the five thugs standing around the figure seated in the chair. Dean ran forward, gun raised. A blond man, scarred face twisted into a grin, raised a handgun just enough to aim it at a sagging head with blood-soaked chestnut hair. “Sammy!” he bellowed, and fired. The man dropped. He fired, but the impact ruined his aim and he only hit Sam’s arm. Only. 

The other thugs were captured alive if violently. Dean jumped into the empty pool and raced to his brother. He hadn’t responded to being shot and Dean’s heart slammed against his ribs. He’d been tied to the chair and clearly worked over very well. His eyes were swollen shut and he’d been shot twice, both in not-necessarily-fatal areas. He’d lost a lot of blood already, though, and more was coming through this latest wound. Well, if he was bleeding he was alive, right? Dean tore off his suit jacket to create a bandage. “A little help here!” he yelled.

Paramedics raced in with a backboard. Dean stepped back only as far as required as Sam was cut free from the chair and strapped to the device and stabilized as quickly as possible. “We need to get him to Morningstar as soon as possible,” he told the one who looked the most in charge.

“Yes sir,” he said. “I just want to make sure he survives the trip. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that he’s in rough shape.” 

Sam wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t breathing, and Dean felt his own breath catch in his throat. “Why isn’t he breathing?” he asked. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Everything,” the backup paramedic replied bluntly. They began exchanging medical jargon quickly, glancing at Dean. “Let’s just move him.” It took a little work to get him out of the pool and onto the stretcher, by which point Sam’s lips were blue. He made it onto the stretcher. Dean followed closely and climbed into the ambulance behind the medics. “You’re kidding, right?” Emergency Backup Paramedic sighed.

“He’s my brother,” the agent grunted as the pair began the monumental task of trying to pull Sam back from the brink of death. Dean hadn’t noticed before but this was one of the special ambulances. He’d always thought the ones that said “advanced life support” were a gimmick, the kind of thing that justified charging insurance companies extra money. It was the first time he’d ever seen someone get a breathing tube on an ambulance. His brother was hooked up to multiple monitors as the stretcher was locked into place and the sirens were turned on. He texted Henricksen and Cas to let them know where he was going. Then he texted Meg.

The trip to Morningstar took ten minutes, which seemed nothing short of miraculous given the traffic. Sam’s heart stopped once en route. Dean actually got to help get the stretcher out of the ambulance and onto a proper stretcher. Orderlies and nurses took over from there, and eyes that probably belonged to Meg and Pellegrino looked out over masks as Crowley took his arm and brought him up to Sam’s office.

The lawyer guided him gently to a seat and poured him a drink from a crystal decanter. “Is it me,” Dean said after taking a sip of what was probably the best whiskey he’d ever tasted, “or was that OR ready in record time?” 

“They cleared that room and kept it free as soon as they had a location on Sam,” the foreigner informed him, taking a sip of his own. “They’ve been scrubbed in and waiting ever since.”

“Awfully optimistic of them.” “The alternative was too awful for us to contemplate.” He looked at Dean over his glass.

“Is it me or is this stuff way above my brother’s usual taste in booze?” he said. 

“I don’t think you’d know much about Sam’s usual taste in booze, but as it happens it’s from my personal stash. Sam isn’t much for hard liquor these days. He doesn’t like to lose control. Meg says it’s a holdover from his days in Somalia.” The ghost of a smile flitted over Crowley’s lips. “I thought you could do with something better than hospital coffee. I suspect you’ll be here for a while. I hope you’ll be here for a while.”

Dean preferred not to consider the other option. “You’re all… you all feel pretty strongly about him.” He took another sip.

“None of us are as close to him as Meg, of course. None of us are as pretty as Meg. But yes. We all feel fairly strongly about our Moose. He reminds us that we’re human. It’s easy to forget that. When you’re a surgeon you cover every part of the patient except what you’re actually working on. You block everything else out. You may never meet the actual patient, or his family. In diagnostic medicine they don’t often look beyond the immediate problem. They might not ever even meet the actual patient. Sometimes they just consult. And me – I’m a lawyer. You don’t get much more subhuman than that, do you? But Sam reminds us that there’s more to what we’re supposed to be doing. Do you know, Nick actually speaks to his family again? Hadn’t done that in a dark age.” 

“Sammy got someone else to talk to his family again? That’s hilarious.”

“Yes, well. I think the situation is rather different. Nick’s family wasn’t quite so put out about his choice of careers.” He sat down. “He has approximately six different living wills, Dean, and four DNRs on file. I know for a fact that this has been ignored once en route.”

“Is that why you’re up here, talking to me?”

“And I thought Sam got all the brains in the family.” Crowley gave a thin smile again. “I have a legal obligation to ensure that those wishes are carried out if I am aware that there is a possibility that they might not be. So here I sit, with you. I have mysteriously and uncharacteristically forgotten my phone. It is in my office, I’m certain.” He spread his hands wide. “Morally I’m divided. It’s clear to me that Sam felt that he had nothing left to live for.” 

The elder Winchester put his drink down. “Can you not?”

“I don’t think that I can, Dean. You see, he was initially quite upset by your sudden appearance in his life. Very distressed, in fact. Continued contact seemed to be doing him good, though. I’ve spent quite a bit of time around him and I don’t think I’d ever seen him come quite so close to smiling so often. He even left the office before seven. That never happens unless Meg forces him. He’s never felt he had anyplace to be before. And then it was ripped away.”

“I was a jackass. I know that. And if he dies anyway, he’ll die still thinking that I suspect –“

“Do you want to have another chance with him, Dean?”

“The hell kind of question is that?” He stood up.

“Sit down, you muppet. It’s a simple question, not an assault on your manhood. Do you want to have another chance with him? It’s up to you. We’ll help, but you have to do things differently.”

“Dude, you put a restraining order out on me.”

“At his insistence. Can’t say as I blame him; his relatives keep trying to kill him. Daddy, granddaddy, cousins… He was just trying to keep body and soul together for just a little longer. And then Gordon Walker found out about his brother. You. And he knew that you would be brought into everything he’d already been through, as well as Meg even though he’d tried so hard to keep her free from it.”

He sighed. “So what is it that you want from me, Crowley? The guy hates me. And he should.” He hung his head. “I believed Gordon Walker before I believed him.”

“He doesn’t hate you, you muttonhead. He’s been lugging around your college tee shirt since before he was Meg’s height. It’s still there. He owns three photographs and they’re all of you. He doesn’t display them prominently and he thinks no one knows, but they’re in his desk drawers. He needs you to stop pushing him away. Is medicine really such a horrible career choice? Look at all the lives he’s saved – look at all the lives he’s improved. All while he’s been just about the saddest man I’ve known. So what if he didn’t want to follow your crusade?”

“He couldn’t have reached out once over the past twelve years?” Dean exploded.

“You couldn’t? What did it take you when you had an idea that he might be out there somewhere, five minutes? If you want him in your life you need to get over that. Or get past it. Stop rubbing his face in it. Christ, how many people with his qualifications get labeled a failure?” He rubbed his own face. “Maybe you should just give it up. Walk away. Lose his number. Leave him to us. We’ll patch him together; we’ve done it before. Of course, he hadn’t tried suicide by mafia before but you know, details right?” 

“Do you really think this was suicide?” Dean whispered.

“Nothing corporate is actually private, Dean. Phone records indicate that he made a call just before coming into Meg’s office. He got into that car voluntarily. He left his weapons behind and we both know that Sam Campbell is more than capable of defending himself with or without a gun in his hands.”

They lapsed into silence after that. Dean couldn’t speak. Crowley had apparently said what he felt he needed to say. After a few hours Cas joined them, then Henricksen. Cas just kept an arm around Dean’s shoulders and that was okay. He didn’t need to try to hide his emotions from his partner or his boss right now, and who really gave a rat’s ass what Crowley thought? “The surgery is still going on,” Henricksen ventured. “That’s probably good, right?”

“Except that the best trauma surgeon at Morningstar is the one on the table,” Dean sighed.

“You could try going to the chapel,” the lawyer suggested. Dean flipped him off. “What happened with the rest of the mooks?”

“They’re at different hospitals. We weren’t about to ask the staff here to take care of them, plus it would have been a security risk. Dean, it looks like Sam made a deal.” Cas sighed heavily and tightened his arm around the Kansas native’s shoulders. “He’d been contacted by the syndicate responsible for what happened today, what happened to the apartment building. What happened to your mother. They told him that if he gave himself up they would let you and Meg and Cassie off the hook.”

“How do you know that?” he whispered. 

“We found a copy of the message in his effects,” Henricksen replied. “Walker confirmed it. Eventually.”

Dean remembered the recorder in his pocket and tossed it to the superior agent. “Here. Evidence. Gordon was involved with the bombing, it’s why he got to the scene so fast.”

“Huh.” He made a face. “Interesting. Well, anyway. I want you to know that, Dean. Whatever happens, Sam was trying to defend you and Meg.”

He glanced at Cas. “Sorry, man.” His partner chuckled. “It’s okay. I don’t think either of us was the one the other wanted.” And what was that supposed to mean? 

The sun sank below the horizon, its lights replaced with harsh fluorescents. There was no clock in the office. Sam wouldn’t have wasted space with a clock, not when he could fill it with books. He had a computer and a cell phone. Well, Dean had a phone too. Ben called. “I haven’t talked to you in a while, Daddy,” he complained. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, honey,” he sighed. “I’ve been on a case at work, it’s been bad. And now your uncle Sam, he’s… he’s hurt bad. I’m at the hospital.”

“Oh.” Ben paused. “Are you scared, Daddy?”

“Yeah, sport. Yeah I am.”

“Oh. Is Uncle Cas there with you?” 

He laughed a little. “Yeah, he is. Do you want to talk to him?”

“No, it’s okay. He’ll take care of you. I love you. Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, Ben. I’ll call you tomorrow no matter what, okay?”

“Promise?”

“I promise. These guys all heard me say it and one of ‘em’s a lawyer so he’ll make me do it, okay?” They hung up.

It was a couple of hours after that when Pellegrino finally came up to the office. “He’s stable for now,” he sighed, his face gray. “We’ve got him on the ICU. Meg’s staying down there with him.” 

“Is he that bad off?” Henricksen frowned. 

“I think it would require a second surgery to remove her,” the department chair told them, drinking straight from the decanter. Crowley made a face. 

“When can I see him?” Dean swayed on his feet as he rose.

“Dean, you need to understand that he’s incredibly, impossibly ill. They never intended for him to survive,” the doctor explained as gently as possible. “They just weren’t going to let him go down quietly. He’s lost a tremendous amount of blood and several of his organs were damaged. There’s no point in you going down there right now. If he lasts the night you can go down there in the morning.” Pellegrino’s soft words hit him with the force of a bomb.


	10. Chapter 10

Sam did last the night, if “lasting” could be considered an accurate word. Dean raced downstairs as soon as Pellegrino told him it was okay. Meg was there of course and the agent could understand why surgery would be required to separate them. Her fingers were so entwined with his, and his were so pale, that it was hard to tell whose were whose. She’d fallen asleep in a chair by his bedside although her eyes flew open when she heard his footsteps. “How is he?” he whispered, moving forward.

“Alive,” she sighed. “For a given value of alive.” She did not whisper. She didn’t need to. Sam didn’t react. “His heart is beating on its own, more or less. We haven’t had to restart it in a few hours anyway.” She glared balefully at the cardiac monitor as though it was somehow responsible for the necessity of its use. 

“I thought he had like a bazillion DNRs or something.” He grabbed a chair and pulled it over to the other side of the bed. 

“He can take it up with the ethics board when he wakes up,” she retorted. “I don’t think his estranged brother gets to lodge a complaint on his behalf.”

He noted her use of “when” instead of “if.” Wishful thinking or Freudian slip? “I wasn’t planning on it.” He glanced up at the monitors. “How bad is it, really?”

“Seriously?” She sighed. “The worst was the damage to his lungs. It was the most extensive, anyway. I think there will almost certainly be some permanent damage. I don’t know how many marathons he’ll be running.”

“Knowing Sammy he’ll try to run even more of them just because it shouldn’t be possible,” he pointed out.

She smiled a little, not mirthfully. It was a weird smile, almost a combination between placating and mocking. A doctor’s smile. Keep telling yourself that, it seemed to say. “Maybe. There was damage to his heart as well. Damage from direct impact, damage from blood loss, damage from all those arrests. Nick has a cousin, a cardiologist living up in Maine. He’s going to call and see if he can convince him to come to San Diego to consult. If… if things work out we’ll see if we can bring him on staff full time.”

“So the damage to Sam’s heart is likely to be permanent.” 

She sighed. “I… yeah. Some of it anyway. He’s going to have to cut back on his getting tied to a chair and tortured regimen, maybe scale it back to once a decade or so.” She reached out and stroked his face. “Like I said, massive blood loss. We topped him off but there was an awful lot of internal bleeding. I mean, an awful lot. The OR looked like a paint factory exploded. More than a few of his internal bits needed some TLC and there’s no way he’s going to be eating solid food for a while.”

“He wasn’t doing so hot on solid food before.”

“All mental.”

“So now his mental and physical worlds mesh.”

“Seriously?”

“Sorry. I’m having a hard time dealing here.”

“Yeah.” Her face actually softened for half a second, which Dean would never have thought possible in front of witnesses. “Uh, broken bones – broken ribs, bullet holes in his leg and his arm that broke some bones and caused more blood loss. A few concussions. If… if he wakes up he’s going to be in a world of hurt, because I know him and he’s not going to want to take the pain meds.”

“How long do you think before he wakes up?” Dean refused to consider the word “if.” 

“Dean, there’s no guarantee. We’ve done everything medical technology can do. We’re even breathing for him, which I know for a fact that he did not want. I just couldn’t … I couldn’t face the idea that he thought…” 

“Yeah. I get it. I get it, Meg.” 

She regained her composure. “He still has brain activity. Anyway, there’s no way to know how long. This part has to be him. He has to come out of it on his own. I hate to sound new-agey because I want to kick those people every time they speak, but this is one of those cases where Sam has to decide to come back. And I just don’t have a lot of faith right now, Dean. I know where his head was at. I know where he was before he got in that car, and I know where he was when you came back into his life and when you cast him out again. I know where he was before you came back into his life too. I just can’t let him be alone right now.”

“We won’t. I promise.” He took Sam’s other hand. It felt cold.

They settled into a little routine that no one wanted to admit was pathetic. Once a day Meg would leave to shower and change her clothes. Nick would take her place. Dean would do the same. Neither Cas nor Henricksen were willing to hold Sam’s hand on his behalf – that would just be weird – but Cas sat his vigil for him. Crowley and Henricksen cycled in and out as well. Other agents moved through the ICU like a shrine. Dean hadn’t realized that his brother had actually spoken to his duty agents, gotten to know them and treated them like friends. Former patients sent offerings of flowers, balloons. One, whose profession probably didn’t bear scrutiny, sent a very rare copy of a medical manuscript from the Dark Ages and where had that come from? “That can’t be sanitary,” Dean whispered to Cas as he looked at the handwritten manuscript.

“Or legal,” his friend retorted. Neither of them was all that willing to open up an investigation, though. 

Cassie broke up with him. It was easier to say that she broke it off with him than to say that it was mutual. She just couldn’t handle dealing with all the crap that had been pulled into her life thanks to this whole mess, and while she felt bad about doing it while things with his brother were so unsettled he had to have suspected that it was coming. Truth be told he’d kind of suspected it even before, but he was okay with it. Everything was amicable. She sent a fruit basket to the hospital room. 

He’d read somewhere that you were supposed to talk or read to coma patients or some such thing. It would resolve the funeral-parlor atmosphere so he decided that it would help. The medical staff didn’t think it could harm anything, although there were some concerns about the reading material selected. At first Dean brought in the newspaper or Sports Illustrated, but that just got contempt from the Morningstar staff. Nick read to him from various case files, catching him up on patients whom he’d saved. Crowley read to him from medical journals and from old books about infectious disease, which Dean figured was only appropriate because the lawyer was like a plague of Egypt or something. Meg read from the dead guy book, which was in Latin.

Dean also did something that the others thought was kind of weird and maybe not such a great idea. He brought Ben into it. Ben was a smart kid, and even though he was young he understood things pretty well. He understood that this uncle he’d never met was pretty sick and needed to hear from the people he cared about and who cared about him. He was willing to give a few minutes of his day to talking to his uncle. It was kind of cute, really. He gave status updates about his day camp activities and his friends and even the little spats he got into with his mom. He told Uncle Sammy about the books he was reading and the things he was doing on his computer, none of which Dean actually understood. After the first couple of times, though, people seemed to get on board with the project. Cas was the first to climb the gangplank, being Cas and all that. He actually knew Ben – and Sam to some extent – so he knew how to guide the kid’s one-sided conversation. After a couple of days Meg started responding to the kid, asking him questions about books. Once she recommended a new book, which shocked Dean to no end. He’d kind of suspected that Meg ate small children for breakfast when Dean couldn’t see her.

Lisa supported Ben’s part in this project. This also surprised Dean. She’d never liked John, never even known about Sammy, but she was eager to have Ben involved with his uncle’s life and recovery. “He’s excited to be a part of your life, a part of your new family, Dean,” she told him. 

“Hey, until three weeks ago he was the only family I had left. Besides Cas, of course.” He paused. “And it’s not a new family, Lisa. It’s rebuilding my old family. My whole family.”

She laughed. “Of course. It’s still new to Ben. How are you holding up?”

He remembered what Meg said. “Heart’s still beating.”

After three days Sam was declared able to breathe with a nasal tube instead of the stupid tube down his throat. It was touch and go for a while – Dean had wanted them to put the stupid thing back in for another few days but they’d pointed out that his lungs needed to learn to work by themselves again – but ultimately things settled back down and the wait returned to normal. Which was pretty much waiting.

It was a full week – Friday night – before change was to be found. Dean had dozed off at only eight o’clock, but time moves differently in hospitals and no one can be blamed for when they fall asleep. Meg was there, reading softly to him from a different book. He was pretty sure it was Pride and Prejudice, which was girly as all hell but whatever. Dean was only half paying attention anyway when the droning “blip” of the monitors changed.

It was the sudden cessation of Meg’s voice that made Dean wake up. His eyes focused first on Meg. Her dark eyes were fixed not on the monitors, but on his brother. His brother’s face to be precise, which had changed. The change was in the color. It was still too pale, too sickeningly close to the color of the sheets. There were two new spots of color though, somewhere between blue and green with flecks of brown and they were staring right at Meg. “Sam,” she whispered.

Of course he was pissed at first. He’d left very distinctly worded instructions and they’d been ignored. Meg’s retort – “You don’t get to kiss me like that and then just walk off to your death, sweet cheeks – “ had shut him right up though and turned him bright red to boot. Maybe his heart was working better than anyone thought, because his blood pressure improved too. The problem with being on an ICU was that privacy didn’t exist. 

Recovery was slow, but it happened and it happened safely. The syndicate that had taken him was well on its way toward being dismantled, because you don’t just take a federal agent’s brother and put him to within an inch of the afterlife without calling Hell down upon yourself. Even if said brother is apparently okay with that. Other criminals wouldn’t even help them.

Sam’s recovery didn’t happen in isolation, either. Meg was there pretty much the whole time, even once Sam was removed from the ICU. That was only natural. They had a chance to talk and came to an understanding about each other’s intentions. That probably went a long way toward helping with Sam’s recovery, both physically and mentally. Dean never learned exactly what passed between them and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know, but his brother seemed less intent on isolating himself after that.

The new commitment to not being an island wasn’t limited to the isthmus of Meg, either. He responded with gratitude to Henricksen and to Cas as well as taking clear pleasure in the presence of his colleagues. He made no move to remove Dean from his hospital room, and when Ben called he made an exhausted attempt to sound enthusiastic. The funny thing was that when he heard Ben’s voice he actually remembered bits and pieces of what he’d been hearing while in his coma. This meant that he was able to ask about the book Ben had mentioned. The kid was beyond thrilled. Sam then promised to send him a new book when he got out of this place. Dean understood what was really being promised there and accepted it.


End file.
